Linguistic knowledge of the selected groups of people with disabilities in the course of educational research – constraints and opportunities

The aim of the article is to identify certain limitations in the research conducted in a group of people with intellectual disabilities and people with hearing impairments. On the basis of reports from the field of developmental psycholinguistics it has been assumed that some of the limitations of research in the above-mentioned study groups will result from the shortcomings of linguistic knowledge of these people. It should be emphasised that linguistic difficulties have completely different backgrounds in the selected groups of people with disabilities, which was sought to be explained here. The authors attempt to identify opportunities posed by qualitative methods increasingly used in the social sciences, including special education. The success of the research procedure, both in the paradigm of the quantitative and qualitative strategies, depends on the level of communication skills and language subjects of the research (respondents, but also researchers).