ACQUISITION OF LANGUAGE AND LITERACY IN THE DEAF

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The primary goal of the proposed research is to investigate the abilities that separate skilled from less skilled hearing-impaired readers. The specific abilities which will be investigated in this research include the processors used in reading (especially phonological coding), knowledge of the sentence structures used in reading, and linguistic skills in signed representations of language. It is anticipated that these studies will be of benefit both theoretically, in increasing knowledge of the reading process, and practically, in relation to the development of materials and methods for more effective teaching of reading. For hearing persons, written and spoken language are critically linked. Evidence indicates that the ability to forge this link is a primary factor distinguishing those who read well from those who read poorly. Reading success has been found to be associated crucially with the use of a phonetic code for the temporary storage of words in working memory. The efficient use of working memory, in turn, has been found to underlie the successful comprehension of complex sentences in a variety of tests. The proposed research will build upon this evidence by examining the use of phonological coding by deaf readers with a range of reading skills. By examining the coding processes used by more and less skilled deaf readers, the types of coding which contribute to successful reading can be identified and pursued. Studies on deaf readers' apprehension of complex syntactic structures will also be extended to additional structures posing different linguistic demands on readers. This project will be extended further by including deaf subjects from hearing families in comparison to deaf subjects from deaf families. In this manner questions concerning effects of linguistic background on reading ability can be addressed. Finally, a project on the acquisition of sign language by young deaf children is proposed, inquiring into the notion of an underlying linguistic base to support written language acquisition.