[Language performance of deaf children and adolescents in verbal and written retelling of a picture story].

Evaluation of the spoken and written language skills of prelingually deaf pupils is necessary to improve existing language curricula. Research on written language shows notable delays and substantial differences in the development of written language in comparison to hearing peers. It is difficult to investigate the spontaneous speech because of methodological problems (no control of speech parameters, language becomes a confounding variable). The written language is therefore a good indicator of language development. Nevertheless, oral communication ability can only be studied through spoken utterances. The present study deals with oral and writing performance of 23 prelingually deaf pupils from 9 to 15 years of age whose hearing losses range from 85 to 117 dB. Tape-recorded short picture sequences described by the children and adolescents were examined by experienced listeners. Furthermore, the written narratives of these picture sequences were also analyzed. Parameters included frequency of occurrence of content and function words, type-token ratio, mean length of sentence, and speech fluency. Speech intelligibility was rated by a panel of naive listeners. The results demonstrate the enormous retardation of oral and written language development and specific qualitative differences compared to hearing children. Language skills improve with age, especially in writing. However, oral and written narrative abilities are positively correlated. The loss of sound requires substitutional media for the acquisition of a formal language system. This should be taken into account in the teaching of language to the deaf in order to build up a language competence which is adequate for their age.