聽障教育界普遍認爲文法手語可以提异聽障生語文能力且自然手語不利於語文的發展,但亦有教師認爲文法手語不易被聽障生理解,對於聽障生的語文發展没有助益。本研究目的即在釐清此間题。研究對象是啟聰學校重度及全聾的學生,以自編的文法手語、自然手語及書面語等三種語言形式的故事理解(文字故事閱讀理解)測驗爲工具,採二因子混合設計,比較聽障生三種語言形式的故事理解能力、以及不同年級組間的差異,並分析兩種手語舆書面語的相關。結果發现:聽障生故事理解能力有自然手語優於書面語、書面語又優於文法手語的現象:三種語言形式的故事理解能力均無年級差異,且分數均不理想:三種語言形式之故事理解能力呈中度正相關。由於本研究聽障生之書面語故事理解能力遠低於一般小三學生,因此結論,實施多年的文法手語教學並未改善聽障生閱讀能力低落的間题,且本研究並不支持自然手語會妨礙國語文學習的說法。
It is common for deaf educators to assume that Manually Coded Chinese (MCC) facilitates deaf students' Chinese language learning, while Taiwanese Sign Language (TSL) impedes their learning process. But some educators suspect that MCC is hard to understand. In this study, the story comprehension of deaf students from three grade levels was tested using TSL, MCC and Written Chinese (WC). The results indicated that, TSL was superior to WC and WC was superior to MCC for each grade group. Besides, no significant differences were found among the three grade levels. There were moderate correlations between TSL and WC, and also between MCC and WC. It was concluded that the Chinese reading ability of deaf students has not been substantially improved after years of using MCC in deaf schools, and also that TSL does not seem to impede deaf students' learning of the Chinese language.