Recent investigations have indicated a relationship between the development of cerebral lateralization for processing language and the level of development of linguistic skills in hearing children. The research 011 cerebral lateralization for Ianauape pmcessinr in deaf Dersons is comnatible with this view. --_ Phonological representationsWe have argued that the absence of appropriate input d&ng a chtical time win& creates a risk for deaf children that the initial bias for left-hemisphere specialization will be distorted or disappear. Two experiments were conducted to test this hypothesis. The results of these investigations showed that children educated early and intensivcly with cued speech or with sign language display more evidence of left-hemisphere specialization for the processing of their native language than do those who have been exposed later and less intensively to those Ianguages.

A visual hemifield experiment investigated hemispheric specialization among hearing children and adults and prelingually, profoundly deaf youngsters who were exposed intensively to Cued Speech (CS). Of interest was whether deaf CS users, who undergo a development of phonology and grammar of the spoken language similar to that of hearing youngsters, would display similar laterality patterns in the processing of written language. Semantic, rhyme, and visual judgement tasks were used. In the visual task no VF advantage was observed. A RVF (left hemisphere) advantage was obtained for both the deaf and the hearing subjects for the semantic task, supporting NevilleÕs claim that the acquisition of competence in the grammar of language is critical in establishing the specialization of the left hemisphere for language. For the rhyme task, however, a RVF advantage was obtained for the hearing subjects, but not for the deaf ones, suggesting that different neural resources are recruited by deaf and hearing subjects. Hearing the sounds of language may be necessary to develop left lateralised processing of rhymes.