Cochlear Spoken Language

It is a common misconception that spoken language is required in order to learn to read and write. This is especially the case when referring to print that is pronounced phonetically. However, the ability to acquire literacy is not unique to those who have spoken language. Deaf adults are also capable of achieving adequate skills in literacy, without any auditory input. While there is a surplus of research dedicated to analyzing how hard of hearing and deaf children with cochlear implants or hearing aids learn to read and write, there are only a handful of researchers who have dove deep into the topic of how profoundly deaf children acquire written language. Determining how deaf children acquire written language is essential to the success …show more content…
The pilot program, referred to as Omega-is-d1, is a literacy training program that combines sign language, text, and visuals. The participants whom tested this learning method consisted of twelve deaf students, in 1st, 2nd, and 4th through 6th grade. Five girls and seven boys participated, and five of the participants had a neuropsychiatric condition including Autism Spectrum and ADHD. Some of the participants had cochlear implants and/or hearing aids. While these students had prior exposure to speech, the experiment was done without any auditory input. It is important to keep in mind that their prior access to language could be a confounding factor, but that the limitation of a more diverse participant group than desired is an inevitable consequence of studying such a small minority group. Omega-is-d1 matched video clips of Swedish sign language produced by a native signer to sentences created by each user. These sentences ranged from words to complete stories. The program itself provided feedback on correct versus incorrect sentence formation. Teachers answered any questions the students had, but no one sat with the participants and provided discussion or reflection during their use of the program. The participants were tested on reading skills, sign language comprehension, and …show more content…
Eleven of them were bilingual in ASL and English. Nine of them were deaf, and three were hearing but had deaf immediate family members. Ninety minute long interviews were designed to answer questions related to the relationship between ASL and English, shared characteristics of proficient deaf readers, the process and significance of reading English for bilingual deaf children, and the defining characteristics of the transition period between “learning to read” and “reading to learn” (Mounty, Pucci & Harmon, 2013). Four themes were coded from the interviews. These included the importance and bi-directionality of ASL and English for deaf children, the importance of cultural and visual access to print for development of both languages, acknowledgement of a variety of effective teaching strategies for both literacy and ASL skills, and the use of fingerspelling as a vital tool for learning to read, write, and translate. The researchers concluded based on interviewee responses that constant exposure to both languages, bilingual role models, motivation and desire to read, and a strong foundation of ASL and fingerspelling are all key to achieving advanced literacy skills for profoundly deaf children. They found that there was not a distinct point in transition from “learning to read” to “reading to learn,” but rather defining characteristics that are associated with the