I know I talked about it a few times already, but my main area of interest is with Hearing Impaired children and how they learn to spell, read and write. I guess all of those would fall under the umbrella term of "literacy."

My essential question could be, "How can you teach a congenitally deaf child to be literate?"

I already know that many deaf children and adults are not literate, but fully rely on manual communication as their main mode of communication. I also know that it takes a lot of practice, patience, and creativity when it comes to teaching this population how to read, write and spell. I dont' know for sure how they compare to literacy of their hearing peers, but I would imagine that their skills are less developed.

What I don't know is how many methods there are to achieving literacy for deaf students (adults and children), and where you would even begin. I also don't know the prognosis for them once they begin therapy or school. and I don't know (and maybe no one will ever know) what the interaction is like in their brains, connecting a gesture and its visual image to black and white letters on a piece of paper (how is meaning reassigned to words instead of a gesture)?

Allison