Emergent Literacy in Visually Impaired Children: Assessment of Oral Language Skills, Letter Knowledge, and Print Awareness

Long before the onset of formal reading instruction, young children develop language skills and print knowledge that form the foundation for later learning of reading and writing (Storch & Whitehurst, 2002). These skills can be grouped under the term emergent literacy. Deprived of vision, blind or profoundly visually impaired children have little exposure to written communication in their daily lives. It can therefore be assumed that these children are likely to have difficulty in developing print awareness, that is, the knowledge about print and how it works. However, research on print awareness in visually impaired children is scarce. This exploratory study proposes an assessment of oral language skills linked to written language skills development (i.e., phonological awareness, verbal short-term memory, and verbal working memory), letter knowledge, and print awareness. A print awareness assessment tool adapted to future Braille readers was developed. Seven blind or profoundly visually impaired children (future Braille readers) and 20 sighted children were tested using the developed assessment. The comparison between blind/profoundly visually impaired and sighted children shows no appearance of disturbance in the development of the oral language skills predictive of written skills in blind or profoundly visually impaired children. In contrast, the results reveal more specificities in the development of print awareness in these children. The data from the present study support the need for early intervention in this area for this population.