Teaching language to nonverbal, hearing-impaired children is in fact, a very controversial matter. The controversy stems from the idea that either of two goals is being targeted. One of which states that after language is learned, the child will be able to communicate orally; while the other states that the child will be able to communicate, not verbally, but manually.
Issues With This Approach
Although you may think that the best end goal would be a speaking child, some adult deaf groups would fiercely disagree. They believe that a hearing-impaired individual does not have to be verbal if only to be able to communicate with the rest of the population. For them, assimilation is not really a dream.
Although they aim to find some common grounds for communication, these groups do not really think it is necessary to learn spoken language just to take on the cultural traits of the verbal people.
And in respect to this claim, you have to understand that in some instances, language should be thought in completely nonverbal ways. The following are some of the means to facilitate language learning in nonverbal children.
British Sign Language...