Case studies of eight hearing impaired preschool children from Spanish speaking homes were presented in this dissertation. The children and their parents were enrolled in the Trinity University Parent/Infant Program for hearing impaired infants from Spanish speaking homes. The case studies consisted of family and medical histories, audiological evaluations, evaluations of intellectual, motor, and language development, and an evaluation of social competencies. The Leiter International Performance Scale was administered by a bilingual clinical psychologist to determine the I.Q. of the subjects; the language and motor development were determined by the graduate students using the Receptive-Expressive-Emergent Language Scale and the Denver Developmental Screening Test. The social competencies were determined by an instrument developed for this study. Intellectual functioning for all children was at the dull/normal level or below, except for one child whose I.Q. was 105; all were language retarded, and all had normal motor development. On the social competencies test, the childrens' scores were analyzed in comparison to each other and to the entire group. As a group, they expressed affection with greater frequency than they attempted to gain the attention of adults and/or used adults as resources. They also spent a great deal of time in productive play and very little in non-productive play. (Author/AM)