The Effect of Handwriting Training on Language Learning Among Deaf Children and Their Matched Hearing Peers in China

Comparing deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children with their hearing peers in learning Chinese, the study tested the lexical quality hypothesis (Perfetti, 1992, 2007), which asserts the importance of building orthographic, phonological, and semantic connections in high-quality lexical representations. DHH children and hearing peers matched on reading age were randomly assigned to one of two groups: One received writing training on both Day 1 and Day 2; the other received pinyin typing training on Day 1 and writing training on Day 2. Compared with younger hearing controls, DHH children showed equivalent vocabulary acquisition and appeared to benefit from orthography training. The study demonstrated, for the first time, the writing effect in DHH children's acquisition of Chinese. It suggests that a combination of character handwriting and phonology training can promote the ability of children to read Chinese, including children who are DHH.