Abstract
For a long time, the sign language has been used in class only in the School for the Hearing Impaired from the elementary school level. The oral method is adopted in the pre-schooling stage, and in most public hearing-impaired and resource classes. Whether children learning sign languages or oral languages has both advantages and disadvantages for learning standard Chinese when they grow up. Therefore, the hearing impairment education has been centered on the language proficiency of the hearing-impaired students. The aim of this study is to explore the language comprehension of the hearing impaired students with various backgrounds. The conclusion of this study is as follows:1. In the variable of ‘the language used for communication in family,’ the result shows that oral-language users have better comprehension than sign-language users. The average deviance is about 30%. The oral-language users have better comprehension than the bilingual users for about 11% in average. The bilingual users have better comprehension than the sign-language users for about 18%.2. In the variable of ‘the language mostly contacted in pre-schooling stage, the result shows that the oral-language users have better comprehension than the sign-language users. The average deviance is about 11%. The oral-language users have better comprehension than the bilingual users for about 26% in average. The sign-language users have better comprehension than the bilingual users for about 16%.3. In the variable of ‘oral practice from birth to school,’ the average difference is under 10% in all of the options, full understanding, partial understanding, and no understanding. Within the ideal of comprehensive communication, we should choose among oral language, sign language, or bilingual according to specific circumstances.