Writing development in deaf adults: a longitudinal study in sign-mediated contexts

This qualitative longitudinal multiple-case study examined written Catalan development in four deaf adults with limited formal literacy attending a Catalan Sign Language-mediated community literacy course taught by a Deaf instructor. Twelve focal texts, collected at initial, midpoint, and final course-embedded writing occasions, were analyzed across orthography, lexical resources, morphosyntax, cohesion, and discourse organization. Participant-level trajectories and complete focal texts provided the primary basis for interpretation. Later productions were generally longer and showed broader communicative scope, more explicit sequencing, and greater use of local linking resources, although persistent nonconventional patterns and divergent trajectories remained. Because the writing occasions differed in task demands, scaffolding, accumulated instructional exposure, and available resources, the observed differences cannot be attributed to instruction alone. The findings characterize writing development as uneven, multidimensional, and situated within participants' linguistic, educational, and sign-mediated contexts.