Palacky University

Pedagogical faculty

Department of special education

The theme of my thesis is called ”Perception of written text by hearing impaired recipients”. I chose this subject matter because I would like to contribute to resolution of question how to help deaf and hard of hearing children develop text literacy skills. In my presentation I will discuss some problems of people who are deaf or hard of hearing and especially reading education of hearing impaired children.

The reading abilities of children who are deaf or hard of hearing have always been a topic of controversial. A lot of hearing impaired children will never be able to understand the written texts adequately. But written form of language is a valuable source of information and represents ”the entrance to the world of hearing people”, too.

In the course of my presentation I want to discuss for example these questions:

• What kinds of problems are there related to deafness and reading process today?
• Why is reading so important for children who are deaf or hard of hearing?
• What is important in the reading-comprehension relation?
• Why does education of hearing impaired children pay great attention to reading?
• What do we know about reading process of hearing impaired people today?
• What abilities does child need to achieve text literacy?
• What is the language situation of deaf children and how it is related to the acquiring of reading skills?
• What problems do hearing impaired children have during the reading with understanding?
• What kinds of possibilities are there to improve the reading skills of children who are deaf or hard of hearing? And etc.

In the world there is paid great attention to develop of text literacy skills of deaf and hard of hearing children. A lot of projects which support reading are realized in the English-speaking world, too. There is prevailing opinion that the best authorities in reading of deaf children are deaf adults. According to references of The Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center of Gallaudet University: Deaf children with deaf parents are superior in reading and writing than deaf children with hearing parents. Hearing parents and teachers can learn from the read strategies used by deaf parents.¹

According to Musselman² researchers in the field of deafness have examined currently above all three factors implicated in reading acquisiton:

• method of encoding print (in connection with deaf readers` deficiencies in phonological processing );
• language-specific knowledge in English (in connection with deaf persons` limited knowledge of the semantics and syntax of English);
• general language skills in sign language (in connection with hypothesis with thought that general language knowledge acquired in sign language can compensate for deficiencies in specific English-language skills.