Deaf Literacy Research Articles

A tangible interface approach to the codesign of a literacy platform for deaf users

We report initial results of the codesign process of a software platform aimed to support the development of reading and writing skills among deaf students at the elementary level. This platform is one of the main outcomes set out for a broad multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary deaf literacy project. As one of the initial user research activities, we held a co-creation workshop with six deaf participants, one sign language interpreter, and four hearing researchers. In this workshop we explored the application of a design technique intended to enhance participation and communication by relying on low-tech tangible representations of interface components that can be combined to generate interaction designs. Through observation during the workshop and analysis of video recordings we have derived adaptations and adjustments to our approach for its application in upcoming codesign activities.

The Deaf Literacy (DEAFLI): A European Project for Young and Adult Deaf People E-learning

The Deaf Literacy (DEAFLI): A European Project for Young and Adult Deaf People E-learning

TECNOLOGIA E EDUCAÇÃO DE SURDOS: POSSIBILIDADES DE INTERVENÇÃO

O presente trabalho dedica-se a uma análise das potencialidades do uso das tecnologias na educação de surdos, tendo em vista os elementos necessários para a efetivação de um projeto de educação bilíngue Libras-Português, a escassa produção nessa área e os desafios cotidianos do chamado processo de inclusão. Para isso, apresentamos recortes de um estudo de caso que teve como objetivo dois projetos distintos e paralelos, embora relacionados: a descrição e análise do uso de tablets, suas implicações nas práticas pedagógicas na área de Português para surdos e ouvintes da Educação de Jovens e Adultos (EJA) e a discussão a respeito dos processos de criação e desenvolvimento de objetos de aprendizagem para alfabetização e letramento de surdos na perspectiva bilíngue. As observações e análises realizadas indicam o predomínio das potencialidades sobre as limitações do uso das tecnologias na educação, inclusive na busca por uma efetiva educação bilíngue para surdos.http://dx.doi.org/10.14572/nuances.v26i2.3481

A Deaf Adult Literacy Collective

In this paper, we present a description of an adult Deaf Literacy project in South Africa. The project is under the auspices of the Deaf Community of Cape Town, a grassroots organisation run by Deaf people to serve the needs of the historically disadvantaged Deaf. The literacy project is staffed by Deaf signers, paired with hearing support teachers. This pairing facilitates the use of a bilingual model of English literacy acquisition, in this case enabling the accessing of written English through the medium of South African Sign Language (SASL). There are currently five classes, each consisting of between 8 and 10 learners. There are slightly more men than women; they have all attended schools for the deaf for at least 12 years and are almost all currently employed, albeit in jobs which are menial, and require less of them than they may be capable of. They grew up in hearing homes where the languages used were English, Afrikaans, and Xhosa, but all prefer to use SASL as their primary language of communication. Reading levels are low, apparently ranging between first and fourth grade, even though the learners have attended residential schools for the Deaf for an average of 10 years.

Deaf Readers as Bilinguals: An Examination of Deaf Readers’ Print Comprehension in Light of Current Advances in Bilingualism and Second Language Processing

AbstractMuch work has examined whether deaf and hearing individuals’ reading strategies are qualitatively different, under the assumption that such differences might account for discrepancies in levels of reading achievement (cf., Allen 1986; Gallaudet Research Institute 2005; Holt 1994; Karchmer and Mitchell 2003; Traxler 2000; Wauters et al. 2006). While generalizing over the performance of deaf readers is not trivial, the evidence seems to converge on the reader’s quality of modality‐independent language experience as the best predictor for reading abilities (Mayberry et al. 2011). In order to better understand the relationship between sign literacy and written literacy, more attention needs to be devoted to the fact that most deaf readers are bilingual in a signed and a written language and that, in most cases, the written language is, effectively, their second language. The growing body of research on bilingualism and L2 processing is rapidly advancing our understanding of the architecture of the bilingual brain and of the individual factors that might affect both production and comprehension in a second language. This body of research has great potential to illuminate aspects of deaf readers’ behavior that have heretofore appeared vexing. In turn, including deaf literacy studies within the larger context of research on bilingualism will contribute to a richer picture of the bilingual experience.

Deaf Children’s Construction of Writing

High illiteracy rates among the Argentine deaf population, even after long years of schooling, point to the need to revise certain approaches to deaf literacy, particularly in school settings. Qualitative change in deaf literacy requires the use of multiple conceptual tools if learners are to be able to tackle its complexity without reductionism or over-simplification. We define illiteracy as the absence of knowledge that involves but is not confined to graphic marks. It has been contended that the term may also apply to the difficulty one experiences in interpreting and using written materials in a variety of contexts, as well as the inability to take part in a literate culture despite having mastered its written symbols. Various studies have focused on different aspects of the “conquest of the written language” by deaf children and teenagers. Stressing their competence in and need for visual communication, this research therefore calls for the rejection of oralism in favor of the new ways of knowing made possible by today’s essentially visual media and multimedia. In speaking of writing as a language or a mode of language, we mean far more than simply communicating. We are also referring to the making of meaning, to the interpretation of cultural practices, and to the reconstruction of the representations that define the family and culture in which every person is subjectively and socially embedded. Thus, literacy should be encouraged as a way to promote integration, and the processes that deaf children engage in to develop it deserve close attention. In order to account for the specific features of the cognitive and linguistic processes that deaf people utilize when dealing with written language, we draw on two perspectives that have revolutionized the traditional understanding of the factors at stake in deaf literacy. These are the socioanthropological view of deafness and the psycholinguistic theory of writing, which is based on psychogenetic studies. Written languages characterize the practices, representations, and discourses of the literate hearing societies in which deaf communities are embedded. Deaf children, to whom written language is a second language, are linguistically, communicatively, and pragmatically competent in their own natural sign language. We explore deaf children’s literacy and the role that sign language plays in the reconstruction of written language. The present study is part of a wider research project that focuses on how these children develop literacy skills. The article concentrates on the cognitive and linguistic processes involved in understanding written Spanish. It also discusses the conceptual schemata of language learners for whom sound does not constitute a source of information. They are already competent, nevertheless, in their own natural language (i.e., sign language), which presupposes a distinctive type of linguistic organization. This article analyzes the interpretation of an illustrated text by deaf children who had had no oral training. The conclusions we draw are based on data obtained at the exploratory stage of this ongoing project. Although they are therefore provisional, we offer them here to encourage the revision of deaf literacy practices.

'How shall we sign that?': Interactions between a profoundly deaf tutor and tutee involved in a cross-age paired reading program

This paper reports on the use of a cross‐age tutoring program designed to improve the literacy skills of a profoundly deaf girl. In a novel approach to such programs, both tutor and tutee participants were profoundly deaf and used Auslan as their common mode of communication. The results of the program indicate that cross‐age peer tutoring has potential as an effective strategy for improving the literacy achievements of deaf children like the tutee participant. Analysis of the videotaped interactions between tutor and tutee over the course of the program provided unique insights into the nature of English literacy learning by profoundly deaf students. These insights point to a role for strategies like cross‐age tutoring where the particular experience of. deafness can be used to promote more effective interpretation and understanding of English for profoundly deaf literacy learners.

‘How Shall We Sign That?’: Interactions Between a Profoundly Deaf Tutor and Tutee Involved in a Cross-Age Paired Reading Program

This paper reports on the use of a cross‐age tutoring program designed to improve the literacy skills of a profoundly deaf girl. In a novel approach to such programs, both tutor and tutee participants were profoundly deaf and used Auslan as their common mode of communication. The results of the program indicate that cross‐age peer tutoring has potential as an effective strategy for improving the literacy achievements of deaf children like the tutee participant. Analysis of the videotaped interactions between tutor and tutee over the course of the program provided unique insights into the nature of English literacy learning by profoundly deaf students. These insights point to a role for strategies like cross‐age tutoring where the particular experience of. deafness can be used to promote more effective interpretation and understanding of English for profoundly deaf literacy learners.