This research serves as an important early step in exploring the extent
to which deaf signing children are able to discriminate sublexical
properties of signs. Our results indicate that significant relationships
exist between ASL phonological awareness, written word recognition, and reading comprehension.This suggests that ASL phonological
awareness might be an important ingredient in the lexical development of deaf children.The results of our study provide additional support for the argument that having a strong phonological foundation
in any language may be more important than the modality through
which it is realized (e.g., Petitto 2000; MacSweeney et al. 2008; Mayberry 2007; Mayberry and Lock 2003). If ASL phonological awareness does indeed discriminate between nonachieving and achieving
deaf readers, these aspects should constitute a critical consideration in
future investigations. In this sense, our research lays part of the initial
groundwork for continued investigations of ASL phonological awareness and English reading skills.