Spelling in Deaf, Hard of Hearing and Hearing Children With Sign Language Knowledge.

Moa Gärdenfors,Krister Schönström,Victoria Johansson

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02463

Abstract

What do spelling errors look like in children with sign language knowledge but with variation in hearing background, and what strategies do these children rely on when they learn how to spell in written language? Earlier research suggests that the spelling of children with hearing loss is different, because of their lack of hearing, which requires them to rely on other strategies. In this study, we examine whether, and how, different variables such as hearing degree, sign language knowledge and bilingualism may affect the spelling strategies of children with Swedish sign language, Svenskt teckenspråk, (STS) knowledge, and whether these variables can be mirrored in these children’s spelling. The spelling process of nineteen children with STS knowledge (mean age: 10.9) with different hearing degrees, born into deaf families, is described and compared with a group of fourteen hearing children without STS knowledge (mean age: 10.9). Keystroke logging was used to investigate the participants’ writing process. The spelling behavior of the children was further analyzed and categorized into different spelling error categories. The results indicate that many children showed exceptionally few spelling errors compared to earlier studies, that may derive from their early exposure of STS, enabling them to use the fingerspelling strategy. All of the children also demonstrated similar typing skills. The deaf children showed a tendency to rely on a visual strategy during spelling, which may result in incorrect, but visually similar, words, i.e., a type of spelling errors not found in texts by hearing children with STS knowledge. The deaf children also showed direct transfer from STS in their spelling. It was found that hard-of-hearing children together with hearing children of deaf adults (CODAs), both with STS knowledge, used a sounding strategy, rather than a visual strategy. Overall, this study suggests that the ability to hear and to use sign language, together and respectively, play a significant role for the spelling patterns and spelling strategies used by the children with and without hearing loss.

Highlights

This article concerns the writing skills of deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children, and focuses on the processes of writing and spelling
Would such a context lead us to expect a pattern of transfer from sign language in the children’s spelling? Is this case comparable to children who are hearing and bimodal bilinguals? Earlier research on the writing of DHH has mostly focused on deviations and errors, and very few writing studies have included a sign language or a bilingual perspective over different language modalities and degrees of hearing
The literature often refers to the fact that more than 90% of deaf children are born into a hearing family without any contact with sign language (Mitchell and Karchmer, 2004)

Summary

Introduction

This article concerns the writing skills of deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children, and focuses on the processes of writing and spelling. The literature often refers to the fact that more than 90% of deaf children are born into a hearing family without any contact with sign language (Mitchell and Karchmer, 2004) This may lead to a delayed start of language acquisition, and, in turn, the acquisition of written language can become a real challenge for the DHH children (Hall, 2017; Glickman and Hall, 2018). Previous research suggests that DHH children who are born into deaf families or, in exceptional cases, into families who started learning sign language early, may face a considerable advantage in their language development (see e.g., Svartholm, 2010 for an overview). Some researchers have analyzed written outcomes for the deaf using the theoretical framework of Second Language Acquisition, arriving at the conclusion that deaf children exhibit grammatical structures similar to those of hearing second language learners in written Swedish (e.g., Svartholm, 2008; Schönström, 2014)

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