The hands and reading What deafblind adult readers tell us

Deafblind readers are heterogeneous in reading skill acquisition. This qualitative study uses in-depth interviews and protocol analyses and queries the three deafblind adult participants in describing their metacomprehension, metacognitive and metalinguistic strategies used when reading different types of text. Using retrospective analysis, the three adults describe and reflect on how they learned language and how they learned to read as children. The participants also describe the technology that assists them in reading print. Data suggest that deafblind adults use a variety of auditory, visual and tactilekinesthetic strategies (i.e. braille, large print, and raised print) in decoding English. Some also use ASL, Signed English and tactile ASL and tactile Signed English.