Deaf children's speaking, writing, and comprehension of sentences

Sentence tests of speaking, writing, and comprehension were given to 10M and 10F prelingually deaf Ss (mm HTLs: 91 db, mn age: 12.9 yrs). The hypothesis was confirmed that the older deaf population of school children still has difficulty in writing syntactically correct sentences that they can say. This phenomenon was related to the severity of hearing loss. Performance was similar to that of 14 normal-hearing Ss aged 6.1-8.7 yrs. An explanation of the phenomenon in terms of linguistic awareness and Bochner's (1978) linear-sequential hypothesis was advanced. The implications of the phenomenon were discussed for integrating the teaching of speaking, reading, and writing in the classroom.