DEVELOPMENT STUDIES OF A MOBILE APPLICATION FOR HEARING-IMPAIRED CHILDREN’S LITERACY INSTRUCTION: A PUT IN ORDER APP

Supporting hearing impaired children’s literacy instruction with innovative instructional materials have direct and indirect effects. These endeavors not only support their academic development but also equip them with lifelong learning skills through developing their read-ing comprehension. The aim of the current paper is to represent development and evaluation studies of a mobile application whose aim is to support hearing impaired children’s syntac-tic awareness. The study was organized in two phases. The first phase covered develop-ment, optimization and usability tests. The mobile application was evaluated through a case study in the second phase. Each study was conducted with different participant groups. The usability tests were conducted with 6th, 7th and 8th grader hearing impaired students within the 2013-2014 academic year. Optimization studies were conducted through design based research methodology with 4th graders within the fall semester of 2014-2015 academic year. Finally, the case study was conducted with 4th graders within the spring semester of 2014-2015 academic year. Data sources of the study are field notes, video records and re-searcher journals. Research data were analyzed with Nvivo 10. Analyses suggested stu-dents’ syntactical awareness is a crucial element for mobile application’s successful integra-tion into classes. Teachers should cooperate with children in first uses of the mobile applica-tion for effective integration.