Teaching of Portuguese to the deaf: an integrative literature review

ABSTRACT Purpose: to identify the contributions of scientific research with a view to overcoming the barriers in the teaching and learning process of the written Portuguese Language for deaf students. Methods: an integrative literature review of the articles published between 2012 and 2017 available in the electronic databases: Capes and Scielo, was conducted. To select the articles, descriptors were combined: Teaching, "Portuguese Language", Portuguese, deaf and deafness. Articles present in both databases, research whose focus was the teaching of Portuguese to higher education deaf students, articles that did not deal with Portuguese language teaching to the deaf, articles unavailable in Portuguese, were the exclusion criteria. Articles that addressed, somehow, Portuguese language teaching to the deaf, complete and published between the years of 2012 and 2017 were included. Results: 133 articles were found, 16 being selected after applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria. These studies, for the purpose of analysis, were categorized into types, being: experimental, bibliographic, documentary, ethnographic, action research, among others. Conclusion: the deaf still face several barriers for acquiring the written Portuguese language, however, the scholars, from their field of action, propose some strategies which can contribute to overcome them, such as: policy review, early acquisition of Libras, use of digital technologies in the classroom.