Logogenia to Support the Development of Competences in Written Italian for Young Deaf Children and Adolescents
Elena Tomasuolo, Debora Musola, Valentina Musella, Lucrezia Di Gregorio, Pasquale Rinaldi
This paper describes an experience of a workshop (60 hours) on Italian grammar, carried out with a group of deaf primary and secondary school pupils as part of the curriculum enhancement PON projects offered by the Ministry of Education. The innovative aspect of the workshop was that Italian was not only the subject, but also the means of communication with the students and of transmission of the contents. Paper handouts and the use of an interactive whiteboard made the group setting appropriate for deaf students. A key element was the use of sentences in imperative (command) and interrogative (question) form to ensure the participation and involvement of all the children. Assessment of children’s skills in written Italian shows various difficulties in morphological and functional aspects of Italian. However, the results of the comparison between the evaluations carried out pre- and post-workshop suggest that, at least in one of the aspects analysed (i.e. nominal morphology), deaf students (mean age 9.5 years) are still sensitive to specific stimulation on Italian grammar. This legitimises the implementation of educational interventions on the Italian language even at an age later than that in which hearing children acquire spoken language.
Keywords
Deafness, Acquisition of the Italian language, Workshop, Grammar, Assessment of skills in written Italian.