To test the hypothesis that better ear hearing acuity in severely hearing-impaired children will interact differentially with cognitive performance because of hemispheric influence, children with bilateral, severe-to-profound hearing loss were given a series of cognitive tasks of increasing difficulty. Ss were divided into right-ear, left-ear, and control groups (N = 8, 12, and 7 each, mean age 13:7) based on a threshold of 5 dB acuity difference between ears. One probe measured conservation in problems involving number, weight, volume, and liquid. Another probe used metaphor vignettes to examine figurative language. The left-ear group performed significantly better than the other groups on the second probe, which requires high-level analogic reasoning. Results support the predictions of hemispheric specialization theory. (Copyright 1994, Sociological Abstracts, Inc., all rights reserved.) (LLBA 1994, vol. 28, n. 4)