Acquisition of oral and written language in children with severely impaired hearing

The effect of the use of written language (WL) for the training of children with severely impaired hearing was compared with that of oral language (OL). WL training was given by means of a WL card method from the age of 1 (group 1; 6 cases) of 2 (group 2; 2 cases). The children in group 1 acquired 3.8 words in OL and 50.5 words in WL as an average number of receptive vocabulary, while 4.5 words in OL and 50.5 words in WL as that of expressive vocabulary by the age of 1 year and 11 months. In group 2, one case acquired 641 words and six-word sentences in OL and 1,066 words and nine-word sentences in WL for reception, while 401 words and five-word sentences in OL and 1,066 words and six-word sentences in WL for expression by the age of 3 years and 6 months. The other case acquired no word in OL but 676 words and nine-word sentences in WL for reception, while 131 words and four-word sentences in OL and 676 words and six-word sentences in WL for expression by the age of 4. The results would indicate that the training of children with poor hearing using WL from an early period of life is effective for the promotion of the language development.