Acquisition of writing by deaf children - initiation of proceedings

Abstract

This study investigates the initial stages of the process of writing acquisition by deaf children. Although both reading and writing processes in deaf children have been raising an increasing number of research, little has been noticed in the way by which they are taught at schools. Even though they recognize that deaf children have distinct difficulties to access oral language, several teachers insist on teaching them as if they were able to hear and without taking into account that they do not know the Portuguese Language. This way, for most deaf children learning to write, means learning another language. The adoption of the Brazilian Sign Language as well as the shift in terms of the conception of language have been generating changes in the teaching of writing to deaf children. By being exposed to the sign language while interacting with deaf people, deaf children will learn it as their first language and through it they will be able to attribute meaning to what they read and write. As for writing, it is expected that deaf children, in much the same way it happens with hearing children, once exposed to written texts, be able to elaborate hypothesis about the functioning of written language. Unlike hearing children, their hypothesis will be visuals. Based on writing materials written by deaf children of a special preschool and of a special kindergarten, the authors have concluded, in this study, that the initial stages of the process are very similar to those noticed in hearing children, although the results are different and are mainly the result of the fact that deaf children access writing through sight.