HOW DEAF AND NORMALLY HEARING STUDENTS CONVEY MEANING WITHIN AND BETWEEN WRITTEN SENTENCES

Forty-nine normally hearing and 49 severely and profoundly deaf or har d-of-hearing participants representing five age groups (10, 11, 12, 13 , and 14 years) wrote compositions elicited from the Accident/Emergenc y picture of the Peabody Language Development Kit. This study compared the frequency and proportional distribution of the use of written-lan guage variables that represented (1) intrasentential syntax-T-unit ana lysis, (2) intrasentential semantics-propositional analysis, (3) inter sentential syntax-syntactic cohesive devices, and (4) intersentential semantics-semantic cohesive devices. Though there were no significant differences between the writing of the normally hearing and deafer har d-of-hearing students in the total number of propositions, cohesive de vices, and T-units, there was a significant difference between the tot al number of words produced. Differences were found between the strate gies chosen by the deafer hard-of-hearing writers in both syntax and s emantics and those of their normally hearing peers. Additionally, age- trend analysis demonstrated significant linear and quadratic age diffe rences for syntactic measures but only quadratic age differences for t he semantic measures. This finding indicates the possibility of differ ent developmental trends for syntax and semantics.