In order to explore a desirable communication mode to recommend to the parents of a young hearing-impaired child, the actual communication modes used by deaf parents as well as the method of language education which they themselves had received in their school days were investigated. The participants in this study were 24 deaf parents including four who were born to deaf parents and twenty who were brought up by hearing parents. The results obtained from the present study were as follows:
1) All of the 24 deaf parents received language education by the auditory-oral method when they were at school, while the use of sign language was forbidden even at home.
2) However, the present communication with members of their family depends on sign language or total communication including auditory-oral communication as well as signed Japanese and manual codes of Japanese. Their communication with hearing people depends on a sign language interpreter or writing in addition to oral communication.
3) According to their statement, they stealthily learned sign language from their classmates or seniors at schools for the deaf, or took a course of sign language of their own accord after finishing their compulsory education.
4) On the basis of their own experiences of school education, all of the deaf parents emphasized the necessity of manual communication modes in addition to the auditory-oral method at school education.
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