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Analysis of the communicative functions of children has been proved to be representative in characterizing their pragmatic language abilities. Moreover, informative and heuristic communicative functions can be a predictor of overall communication development in children with hearing loss. The purpose of this study was to compare the development in children with hearing loss. The purpose of this study was to compare the development of communicative functions of 4- and 5-year-old children with and without hearing loss, focusing on informative and heuristic communicative functions. The subjects were 10 orally-educated deaf and 10 normally hearing age-matched children. They were observed in a free play session with a researcher. Intentional communicative behaviors of the children were transcribed and coded for communicative functions and modalities. The coding system was adapted from the studies of Nicholas (2000) and Day et al.(1986). The number of categories was nine and 5 out of the nine were informative and heuristic functions: response, statement, question, commitment, evaluation. The results of this study are as follows: (1) The mean number of intentional communicative behaviors was significantly higher in the group of normally hearing children than in the group of hearing loss, (2) the mean percentages of total informative and heuristic functions between hearing loss and normal children group were significantly different. Normally hearing children used more informative and heuristic functions as compared with hearing-impaired children at the same age, (3) there were no significant differences in the mean percentages of response, statement, question, commitment, and evaluation between the two groups, (4) there were significant differences in the use of information telling of statement function and wh-question of question. And the negative evaluation of evaluation function was never shown in the hearing loss group.
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