Teaching reading and writing with the intramorphic method to deaf children

This study investigated the effectiveness of the intramorphic method (Celo & Vian 2013) to teach reading and writing to deaf children at the beginning of primary school. The theoretical background of this study is Jakobson's concept of intersemiotic translation (1966), applied to the specific characteristics of the translation between a signed and a vocal language, and Selinker's concept of interlanguage (1972), applied to the process of acquiring a spoken language as a second language in deaf children whose mother tongue is a signed language. A sample of 15 deaf children enrolled in a 1st class of Primary school (age range : 5,8-7 y.) was recruited in four institutes in Italy (Milan, Turin, Brescia and Salerno). In these schools a bilingual or Signed Exact Italian (ISE, Italian acronym) approach was applied. The sample was composed of an experimental group of 6 children who benefitted from the intramorphic method, and of 9 controls who did not. Reading and writing skills were assessed with Italian tests validated for hearing children. Results confirmed the hypothesis of beneficial effects associated to the experience of the intramorphic method, although further research is required to generalize this finding and better explore qualitative aspects related to the metacognitive and metalinguistic processes activated by this method in deaf children