Building a Language Base in Hearing-Impaired Students

This article discusses the importance of fostering the development of a "first language" as demonstrated by each hearing-impaired student. Support for the discussion is provided by research from the field of (hearing) bilingual education. Nine factors are presented that should be considered by educators working with children who do not have a strong first-language base on which to build second-language (i.e., English) skills and by educators who wish to facilitate bilingual/bimodal proficiency.