Thirty hearing-impaired children at a residential school for the deaf, a day school for the deaf, and a day program for the deaf in a regular public elementary school were shown picture books, asked to tell the story, and asked to respond to specific questions. Results showed that the ability to process questions was related to the structure of the information the respondent held. The ability to process simple identification questions was related to the presence of the response within the immediate environment, while the ability to comprehend questions involving predictions about events in a narrative not immediately present were related to the ability to retrieve the salient elements of the narrative. Questions involving the recall of detailed information or questions about causal relationships appeared to be dependent on the ability to retain more than the salient events of the narrative. It is concluded that simple linear curricula or testing procedures that are built on syntactic structures alone will not be accurate predictors of the hearing-impaired child's real ability or effective instructional devices. More global models of language development and processing are needed. (8 references) (JDD)