A Deaf Child's Language Acquisition Verified Through Text Retelling

Abstract

The researchers studied a method of mediation with a deaf second grader. Language needs were identified through transcription of the child's retellings of weekly basal stories. These were either targeted for adult-mediated conversations during reading activities or left "untargeted but tracked." During two intervention phases, the student's performance on semantic and syntactic features of interest incorporated into retellings improved when an adult facilitated; when an adult was intentionally unavailable to mediate retellings, documentation of positive linguistic changes indicated internalization or acquisition of these features. Analysis of language behaviors that did not improve during unmediated retellings indicated a need for continued mediation. Untargeted but tracked behaviors that went unchanged during data collection further documented that language behavior changes resulted from adult mediation, not maturation. The child achieved 1 year's reading growth during the data collection period (1 academic year) on the Gates-MacGinite Test of Reading (hearing norms; W. MacGinite & R. MacGinite, 1989). Text retelling methodology proved useful, although group design study is warranted.