Written products and writing processes in deaf and hard of hearing children and their hearing peers

The development of sufficient writing skills is essential for participation in higher studies, as well as professional and social contexts, and is thus essential for all school children. Previous research on written texts and writing processes among deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children has shown that this group struggles more with writing than their hearing peers. This study uses theoretical frameworks from linguistics and cognitive writing theories, and sets out to explore in more detail how a group of DHH children, age 10–12 years old (with knowledge of sign language and oral language), compares to hearing peers (with or without sign language knowledge). More specifically we collected texts with keystroke logging to capture writing processes. We then investigated how text length and lexical properties in the written text products related to writing processes such as planning (measured through pauses) and revision, and how background factors age, gender, hearing and knowledge of sign-language predicted the outcome in product and process. Overall results indicate that age is a strong predictor for writing fluency, longer texts and more sophisticated lexicon for all children. The DHH group is characterized by slower writing fluency, higher lexical density, and extensive revisions on word level and below. One explanation for the last finding is that limitations in the auditory input lead to more uncertainty regarding correct and appropriate lexical choices, as well as spelling. The study contributes by identifying what is challenging during writing for DHH children in middle school.