Developing Written Literacy in Deaf Children Through Analyzing Sign Language

This study addresses the effects of complementary sign language instruction on three measures of literacy. Six severely to profoundly deaf high school residential students, whose preferred mode of communication was either American Sign Language (ASL) or Pidgin Sign English (PSE) participated in a program of instruction comparing ASL and English. Literal and figurative translation and editing and grammatical English skills were taught. Seven control subjects did not receive any intervention during this time.

No significant differences between the experimental and control groups were found on the pre-test measures. The post-test scores for the experimental group were significantly higher than those of the control group. Suggestions are given for further research in bilingual-bimodal literacy instruction.