Long-term progress in reading abilities in hearing-impaired children trained by the Kanazawa method

The speech and language training for deaf children at our clinic is done by the Kanazawa method, consisting of reception and production training in sign language (SL) along with auditory/oral language (OL), and written language (WL) training. The present investigation was undertaken to explore long-term progress in reading comprehension abilities in 14 hearing-impaired children who were trained by the Kanazawa method before entering elementary schools. Progress in reading comprehension was evaluated using a standard reading test for hearing peers. The results obtained were as follows: (i) The average score in reading ability just before entering elementary schools was a second level, (ii) this high score was maintained almost longitudinally, and (iii) on the other hand, the hearing-impaired children who had poor reading scores on entering schools continued to score poorly in higher grades. These results suggest that early presentation of WL is effective in the acquisition of reading ability, which is especially difficult for the hearing-impaired.