Application of the structured analysis of written language tool to the writing of deaf Chinese students

Limited access to spoken and signed language is a worldwide phenomenon affecting deaf children. Language delay caused by impeded language acquisition has negative cascading effects on deaf children's learning and development. In the event of stymied language development, deaf students exhibit highly errored writing and commit errors unseen in the writing of hearing students. There is a need for specialized tools to evaluate and monitor the progress of deaf students' written language in ways that can inform instruction. The Structured Analysis of Written Language (SAWL), developed for this purpose, has thus far been used to analyze American students' writing. The objective of this study was to determine if and how the SAWL could be used to evaluate the writing of deaf Chinese students. After establishing a protocol, we piloted the administration of six SAWL variables in analyzing the writing of 11 Chinese and 11 American matched pairs across two genres of writing. Our hypothesis was that the instrument would result in similar outcomes across the groups, which had been carefully matched on hearing, language, and literacy variables. Independent samples t tests revealed that even though the groups differed on two SAWL variables for informative writing (the percentage of complete sentences and the number of words used in perfect t-units [an independent clause and its dependent clause counterparts]), most variables across genres were not statistically significant. Results, limitations, and implications are discussed.