Deaf individuals use different forms of communication: oral language and sign language. This study investigated whether these forms of communication would have an effect on text production. Forty deaf adolescents were equally divided into two groups: those who used sign language (LIBRAS) and those who used Portuguese in its oral form. Each participant was asked to write a story from a sequence of pictures. The stories were analyzed according to their cohesiveness and to their narrative structure. It was found that both groups had difficulties in establishing textual cohesion in their stories. Although both groups produced stories with an elementary structure, deaf adolescents who used oral language produced stories more elaborated than those who used sign language. Differences between groups and the difficulties the participants had are interpreted as a function of their limited contact with written texts in their everyday life. Educational implications are discussed.
deaf adolescents; text production; oral and sign language
