Acquisition of Case Particles of 4 Hearing-Impaired Infants Trained by Kanazawa Method

Abstract

We examined the period in which hearing-impaired infants start using case particles in sign language communication. The subjects were four hearing-impaired infants who have been undergoing language training based on the Kanazawa (written-oral language) method since birth.
1) The hearing-impaired children started using case particles between 1 year 11 months and 2 years 2 months of age, which was almost the same as the normal-hearing children.
2) The first case particle was "wo" for all four cases.
3) The findings indicated that even hearing-impaired children can understand and express Japanese language the same as normal-hearing children by using Japanese sign language vocabulary and sentences (fingerspelling or sign language for postpositional particles) from early childhood.