Kotowicz, J. 1 , Schromová, M. 2 , Woll, B. 3 , Rosalind, H. 4 , Kielar-Turska, M. 5 , Lacheta, J. 6 & Skalny, M. 1
1 Pedagogical University of Cracow, Department of Special Education, Cracow, Poland
2 Uniwersytet Warszawski, Section for Sign Linguistics, Warsaw, Poland
3 University College of London, UK
4 City University London, UK
5 Uniwersytet Jagiellonski, Cracow, Poland
6 Uniwersytet Warszawski, Section for Sign Linguistics, Warsaw, Poland
The aim of this research was to determine the relation between Polish Sign Language (Polski J?zyk Migowy, PJM), a less commonly studied sign language, and reading comprehension in Deaf native signing children. Deaf children of Deaf parents who attended schools for Deaf students (N=20, age: M= 9;11, SD=1;11, ?=4 ,?=16) participated in the study. No child had cochlear implant, additional disabilities or below average IQ (measured by Raven?s Progressive Matrices). The pilot version of the Polish Sign Language (PJM) adaptation of the BSL Receptive Skills Test (RST) was used to determine proficiency in PJM. The Polish reading comprehension test (Grzywak-Kaczynska) was used to assess the level of reading. The PJM RST scores correlated strongly with reading comprehension (r = .65, p < .01). Regression analyses indicated that age and sign language skills significantly predicted reading abilities R2 = 0.583, R2adj. = 0.530, F (2, 16) = 5.224, p < .05. This model accounted for 53% of the variance in reading comprehension in Deaf native singing children. We did not include the nonverbal IQ in the model, because this variable did not correlate with the reading scores (r = - .111, p > .05).