Are They Really Poor Spellers?: A Socio-psycholinguistic Study on Sinhala Spelling Errors of Visually Impaired Language Learners

Abstract

Though, a considerable amount of studies on visual impairment have supported the concept of ‘sensory compensation’, a growing body of studies has identified Visually Impaired Language Learners (VILLs) as poor spellers. However, ‘social model of disability’ has emphasized that the society contributes crucially to disable physically impaired persons. Reading between lines, there is a room for some socio-psycholinguistic factors which motivate VILLs to be poor spellers. Though, several attempts have been made to investigate linguistic restrictions towards VILLs, treatments by researchers to the socio-psycholinguistic underpinnings for spelling errors of VILLs are not satisfactory. Therefore, the present study was carried out with the objective of exploring the underlying socio-psycholinguistic factors which encourage poverty of the spelling of VILLs. Exploratory research design was adopted in order to allow for an in-depth investigation on the topic under study. Both quantitative and qualitative data were used for the purpose of achieving the objective of the study successfully. Evidence from the present study suggests that visual dominance and the unconsciousness on the potentiality of sensory compensation in spelling system, instructional strategies of spelling and Braille code of Sinhala encourage poverty of the spelling of VILLs. The Researcher has suggested some effective technological remedies on the basis of the results revealed through the study to get around the bottlenecks, facing VILLs in the contexts of inclusive linguistic behaviours due to poor spelling.