Abstract
Previous research has established a correlation between literacy skills and sign language skills among deaf children raised in signing families, but little research has examined the impact of early signing skills on the rate of growth of emergent literacy in early childhood. A subset of data was extracted from a larger dataset containing national longitudinal data from a three-year investigation of early literacy development of deaf children who were between the ages of three and six at the outset of the study. Selection criteria for inclusion in this limited sample included: 1) being rated as having little or no access to spoken language and 2) being raised in homes in which signs were regularly used as a means of communication (N = 56). Our purpose was twofold: 1) to examine and describe the trajectories of growth in letter and word identification skill for this sample in relation to the participants’ initial ages; and 2) to assess the degree to which the presence or deaf parents in the home (DoD) and the receptive American Sign Language (ASL) skills of the participants impacted both the level of emerging print literacy and its rate of growth over the three year period. We hypothesized that both the presence of a deaf parent in the home and the acquisition of ASL skills, a strong native language, would contribute to both the overall letter and word identification skills and to the rates of growth of this skill over time. Results indicated that having a deaf parent did, indeed, impact emergent literacy attainment, but its effect was rendered nonsignificant when ASL skill was taken into consideration. Possession of stronger ASL skills, whether or not the children had deaf parents, contributed significantly to both the levels and rate of growth. The findings contribute to the body of work that emphasizes the importance early language skills (spoken or signed) to later academic success and dispels the myth that deaf children with deaf parents have exclusive access to the acquisition of these skills.
Highlights
A vast body of research has documented the importance of language to the development of literacy
Visual language skills affect a young deaf child’s acquisition of reading over time the rate of growth in letter word identification? We hypothesize that the presence of a deaf parent in the home and the level of American Sign Language (ASL) Skill will both contribute to emerging letter word identification skills, but that the level of ASL Skills, indicating the acquisition of a native language, will be the stronger predictor
In order to study the trajectories of growth in emergent literacy among young deaf children who were making the transition from pre-school to elementary school, the current paper presents an analysis of a subset of data from the Early Education Longitudinal Study (EELS), a three-year study designed to provide a large database of a national sample which could be accessed by both the study designers and other researchers to investigate a range of aspects of the development of young deaf children conducted within the National Science Foundation Science of Learning Center on Visual Language and Visual Learning (VL2) from 2009 to 2012
Summary
A vast body of research has documented the importance of language to the development of literacy. The majority of existing longitudinal studies have addressed early print literacy development of deaf children, such as those by the Colin, Easterbrooks, and Harris and their colleagues, generally have small samples [10,11,12,13,14], and they vary considerably in terms of the participants’ level of hearing loss, itself a strong correlate of reading skill [15] This confound frequently affects studies that include deaf children whose primary communication is spoken language, as these children often have greater levels of residual hearing than those who depend on signs and greater residual hearing is often associated with more age-appropriate reading skills [13]. Visual language skills affect a young deaf child’s acquisition of reading over time the rate of growth in letter word identification? We hypothesize that the presence of a deaf parent in the home and the level of ASL Skill will both contribute to emerging letter word identification skills, but that the level of ASL Skills, indicating the acquisition of a native language, will be the stronger predictor
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