The contribution of the Assisted Kinemes Alphabet (AKA) to the development of phonological skills in prereader deaf children

This study aims to assess the contribution of the Assisted Kinemes Alphabet (AKA)—a gestural communication system that makes it possible to differentiate the phonemes of spoken language—to the development of phonological skills in prereader deaf children. Twenty children (five to seven years) participated in this research: ten hearing children (HC) and ten deaf children (DC). Researchers administered multiple phonological tasks that are considered to be necessary to develop literacy skills. Each task was presented in matched conditions (with or without AKA support) in order to objectify the contribution of this gestural system. The results show (1) a significant difference between the groups for most tasks, with DC displaying weaker performances than HC, and (2) a significant effect of AKA on DC performances for all tasks (rapid automatized naming, auditory discrimination, word and pseudoword repetition, rhyme judgment, initial syllable/phoneme identification) except the digit repetition task.