What's in a diary? Di-EL first words

Children with hearing loss and their families are now presenting for early intervention support and guidance at increasingly younger ages. At present there is a paucity of research that informs teachers about early language development in the child with hearing loss. Di-EL First Words (Di-EL) is a diary technique through which parents record their child's first 100 single words, in collaboration with teachers. This paper demonstrates, through case studies, how data from a child's diary can be used to monitor and investigate rate of lexical acquisition, lexical content and the emergence of word combinations in three children with profound hearing loss. This information is important if teachers are to know if, when, and how to promote early language development in children with hearing loss.