Hearing children learn to read by mapping the sounds of their spoken language onto the written letters. These sound to letter connections become crucial for word recognition and subsequent reading acquisition and literacy. Phonological development is strongly related with reading development. But deaf readers have reduced or no access to spoken language they’re learning to read. Nevertheless, many deaf readers go on to become skilled readers. So naturally, question arises what is the nature of their reading processes? Is phonology even necessary for deaf readers to develop skilled reading? Evidence for whether deaf readers rely on phonology during reading has been inconclusive: Skilled adult deaf readers have been reported to use phonological coding during short-term memory recall tasks [1], but not in word recognition [2], so phonology may come into play depending on the task demands. Additionally, most deaf signers in the US use ASL as their primary language of communication and they also use (written/spoken) English. To what extent do their ASL skills predict reading comprehension?
We evaluated the contributions of lexical quality (LQ) (Study 1) and ASL variables (Study 2) to reading comprehension in deaf adult signers, matched for reading ability with hearing non-signers. The Lexical Quality (LQ) Hypothesis proposes that the quality of phonological, orthographic, and semantic representations impacts reading comprehension, above and beyond other variables known to influence comprehension, such as non-verbal reasoning, age or education. The LQ variables were orthographic (spelling), phonological, and semantic (vocabulary) knowledge assessed using standardized tests.
In Study 1, we recruited 98 hearing and 97 deaf adults who completed a number of assessment tests, including a standardized test of reading comprehension (PIAT-R reading comprehension subtest). Using a hierarchical regression model, which allows us to factor out variables one step at a time, we found that for hearing readers, phonology was the strongest predictor of reading comprehension. In contrast, for deaf readers, semantics and orthography, not phonology, predicted reading comprehension. We replicated this result using a different test of reading comprehension (assessed by the Woodcock-Johnson IV Passage Comprehension Subtest), suggesting that the lack of the role of phonology is not specific to the PIAT test. We conclude that strong orthographic and semantic representations, rather than precise phonological representations, predict reading skill in deaf adults.
In Study 2, we recruited 89 deaf ASL signers, who completed tests of ASL skill, ASL comprehension, ASL sentence reproduction and ASL fingerspelling repetition tests. We asked to what extent ASL skills predict reading comprehension above and beyond other variables. We found that fingerspelling was the only significant variable in our model, explaining variance in reading comprehension scores. The findings corroborate the idea that ASL fingerspelling and English orthography mutually facilitate reading proficiency in deaf readers [3].
We evaluated the contributions of lexical quality (LQ) (Study 1) and ASL variables (Study 2) to reading comprehension in deaf adult signers, matched for reading ability with hearing non-signers. The Lexical Quality (LQ) Hypothesis proposes that the quality of phonological, orthographic, and semantic representations impacts reading comprehension, above and beyond other variables known to influence comprehension, such as non-verbal reasoning, age or education. The LQ variables were orthographic (spelling), phonological, and semantic (vocabulary) knowledge assessed using standardized tests.
In Study 1, we recruited 98 hearing and 97 deaf adults who completed a number of assessment tests, including a standardized test of reading comprehension (PIAT-R reading comprehension subtest). Using a hierarchical regression model, which allows us to factor out variables one step at a time, we found that for hearing readers, phonology was the strongest predictor of reading comprehension. In contrast, for deaf readers, semantics and orthography, not phonology, predicted reading comprehension. We replicated this result using a different test of reading comprehension (assessed by the Woodcock-Johnson IV Passage Comprehension Subtest), suggesting that the lack of the role of phonology is not specific to the PIAT test. We conclude that strong orthographic and semantic representations, rather than precise phonological representations, predict reading skill in deaf adults.
In Study 2, we recruited 89 deaf ASL signers, who completed tests of ASL skill, ASL comprehension, ASL sentence reproduction and ASL fingerspelling repetition tests. We asked to what extent ASL skills predict reading comprehension above and beyond other variables. We found that fingerspelling was the only significant variable in our model, explaining variance in reading comprehension scores. The findings corroborate the idea that ASL fingerspelling and English orthography mutually facilitate reading proficiency in deaf readers [3].
RSS Feed
