Investigation of hearing imparied childrens use of nominal suffixes in Turkish

The aim of this study was to determine the differences between normally hearing children and hearing impaired children on the use of nominative, accusative, dative, locative and ablative nominal suffixes in Turkish. In addition, the use of nominative suffixes of hearing impaired children in spontaneous speech, writing ability and speech with probe ability was investigated and correlated with age, grade, school and level of hearing impairment. This study was conducted in Yahya Özsoy and Kemal Yurtbilir Hearing Impaired Primary School located in Ankara. Twenty-one girl and 21 boy hearing impaired children who have attended 3rd, 4th or 5th grade level of these schools, and 21 girl and 21 boy normally hearing children who have attended 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade level in brahim Bitik Primary School, have participated in the study. The results of this study were analyzed by using SPSS 15.0. The results have shown that the hearing impaired children?s use of nominal suffixes was significantly different from those of normally hearing children. However, the use of nominal suffixes in the area of spontaneous speech, writing and speech with probe was not significantly different from each other. In addition, correlation of age, grade level, school and level of hearing impairment level did not differentiated in the three ability areas. The results of this study have shown that language development of hearing impairment children were not only related with those variables. It is suggested that further research should pay attend various variable that could affect language development of hearing impaired children and should conduct all grade level of school life. Key Words: Hearing impairment, nominal suffixes