Speech Production Characteristics of the Hearing

One of the most devastating effects of congenital hearing loss is that normal development of speech is often disrupted. As a consequence, most hearing-impaired children must be taught the speech skills that normal-hearing children readily acquire during the first few years of life. Although some hearing-impaired children develop intelligible speech, many do not. For many years, it was believed that profoundly hearing-impaired children were incapable of learning to talk. Carrying this belief' to the extreme, Froeschels (1932) even suggested that all deaf children eXhibited some behavior problems, "due to the fact that the profuse motor release connected with speech is impossible in their case" (p. 97).