ろう児はどのように文字習得をするか

Abstract

We know that children who were born profoundly deaf have much difficulty to learn to speak English or Japanese. But is it possible that profoundly deaf children learn to read written English or Japanese? Some researchers mention that early exposure to fingerspelling actually helps deaf children become better readers. Then I tried to find the reason why fingerspelling helps deaf children develop their reading ability and examined how to develop deaf children’s reading ability with fingerspelling. I concluded that fingerspelling is not an alphabet spelling but a sort of sign language for deaf children and they can master fingerspelled expressions as their native language which means a naturally effortlessly acquired language.