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ISBN: 978-972-8939-25-0 © 2010 IADISBILINGUAL ALPHABETISATION OF DEAF CHILDRENAND PROGRESS ASSESSMENT: A PROTOTYPE OF AWEB SYSTEM BASED ON A PHONIC METHODOLOGYMiranda, Aléssio Paula, L.J.de , García,L.S, Capovilla F.C, Direne, A.I; Sunye,M.S.; Castilho, M.A.; Bona, L.E; Silva, F.; Machado D. and Duarte J.; Bueno J.Computer Science Department, UFPR, Centro Politécnico, Av Cel Francisco H dos Santos, Curitiba Paraná, BrazilABSTRACTGlobalization, supported by computer technology and mechanisms of long distance communication, is responsible forincreasingly smaller obstacles in communication across countries and cultures. However, the communication obstaclesfaced by deaf people are yet to be eliminated, one effective way of doing it being through leaning Portuguese. In order tosupport this process and assess the students language acquisition, Fernando Capovilla develop a set of eleven teststhrough which the level of Libras (Brazilian Sign Language) and Portuguese knowledge of deaf students can be measuredwith some precision. In the present paper, we will describe a web prototype of these tests based on the aforementionedmethodology. The test system we propose here could potentially be used by deaf people across the country. We will alsodiscuss the challenges entailed by the project, as well as the solution we put together, for which both key concepts ofHuman-Computer Interaction and certain contextual constraints were of paramount importance.KEYWORDSDeaf students, Human-Computer Interaction, Assessment, Libras, Portuguese, Capovilla.1. INTRODUCTIONOne of the most paramount underlying principles of education is the notion of evaluation, meant here as thekey element to the constant improvement of teaching. Only through constant improvement will it be possibleto add to the conceptual pair “teaching-learning” the necessary underlying cause-consequence relation to theprocesses of teaching and learning. In this light, evaluation in the context of the alphabetization of deafchildren plays an even more crucial role, particularly in a country with chronic difficulties in the area ofeducation. Indeed, the current investments in education are not even enough to bring illiteracy to an end, letalone to improve the standards of Special Education to an acceptable level.2. THE TESTS AND THE HYPOTHESIS METHOD2.1 Features of the TestsThe tests contain four basic response types, namely “choose amongst the pictures”, “choose amongst thewords”, “choose Right or Wrong” and “write words”. As for the stimuli that prompt the responses, the testsmake use of the following: live or drawn Libras signs, pictures of objects, pictures of objects associated towords and written sentences. As regards the analysis of the cognitive process, five different strategiespermeate the different tests. Firstly, the level of difficulty is increased gradually so as to indentify when theexaminee stops getting questions right. Secondly, the level of syntax complexity of the sentences is graduallyincreased as a strategy of error induction, mainly through distracting pictures that actually correspond toincomplete parts of the sentences. The main objective here is to assess the level of syntactic processingacquired by the student. Thirdly, different reading routes (logographic, perilexical, lexical) are contrasted350