Early Print Concepts: Insights from Work with Young Deaf Children

The notion that young children form and test hypotheses about early print is well established in relation to children from different cultures who use different languages. This study demonstrates that this also obtains for young deaf children still in the early stages of developing spoken language. Data collected from the homes of 13 deaf children (aged from 3 years 3 months to 4 years 4 months at the start of the study) over a two-year period showed hypothesising and experimenting around writing. Spontaneous drawing and writing samples were collected and a method of eliciting data was devised that did not rely on the children knowing vocabulary related to print (e.g. "word" or "sentence"). The data revealed that these children had internalised print concepts but this knowledge could easily be overlooked. Implications for educational settings are discussed. (Contains 6 tables and 5 figures.)