[Lonnie]

I know that when I read or write, I actually hear the words in my mind. How do the deaf (at least those who have never heard the spoken word) read, pray (mentally), etc.? What techniques are used to learn to read, since the hearing typically learn by sounding out the words?

User Detail :  

Name : Lonnie, City : El Paso, State : TX, Country : United States, 

[Terry29082]

Current research suggests that deaf people who have some ability to phonologically encode letters and words are the best readers. This usually means deaf readers who have some residual hearing (hearing loss occurs along a continuum of mild to profound) are better readers, but there are exceptions, of course. Even for readers born profoundly deaf, if they use ‘something’ similar to phonological processing, in that they may not physically hear sounds perfectly, but can associate letters and words with internal representations or approximations of sound, that helps them to encode and do it automatically. It is generally known that poor readers, deaf or hearing, use the visual features of words and their memory during reading, which is a slow and laborious process. Any person, deaf or hearing, can become a better reader by reading for one hour daily. With more exposure to text and vocabulary, the reader’s proficiency increases exponentially.

User Detail :  

Name : Terry29082, Gender : F, Disability : Deaf, Age : 48, City : Fremont, State : CA, Country : United States, Social class : Upper middle class, 

[Christy19495]

I usually absorb the words as I read. I don’t heard the words although I could speak. When I write, I would fingerspell the word if I have trouble remembering how it should be spelled. It seems that my hands have a better memory than my brain. If I read a fiction book, I would try to visualize the story. The characters in my mind, aren’t deaf but they don’t move their lips as I know that the author is not writting about deaf people. I have noticed that the deaf people are better at spelling than some of the hearing people but they can be lousy at grammar because of heavy usage of ASL. Hearing people do misspell if they phonetically spell ‘hear’ as ‘here’ (or vice versa), etc. A deaf person will have a hard time understanding what that hearing person was writting (especially if the deaf person doesn’t speak at all). The reaction is exactly the same in a hearing person who had a hard time understanding what a deaf person was writting if he uses ASL grammar. I can understand what the above hearing person wrote but my reading will slow down alot as I tried to figure what he meant phonetically. I can understand a deaf person’s ASL writing but I would have to picture him signing those words to me, in order to understand what he was saying. As for praying, I either sign in my mind or thinking the words. I used to dream in sign-language (or gestures of those who don’t know sign-language) when I was a child. Now I dream in telepathy in place of gestures.

User Detail :  

Name : Christy19495, Disability : Deaf, City : SE, State : MI, Country : United States, 

[Anna19736]

When I read, I ‘feel’ the words in my mind. Rather, I feel the signs. Depending on schooling, etc.. we often learn written English as a second language, since ASL (American Sign Language) is not at all related to English. This is why some Deaf people have lower than average English skills, but are highly intelligent and literate in ASL.

User Detail :  

Name : Anna19736, Gender : F, Disability : Deaf, Race : White/Caucasian, Age : 30, City : Seattle, State : WA, Country : United States, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, 

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