Fiona E. Kyle

Predictors of reading development in deaf children: a 3-year longitudinal study.

The development of reading ability in a group of deaf children was followed over a 3-year period. A total of 29 deaf children (7-8 years of age at the first assessment) participated in the study, and every 12 months they were given a battery of literacy, cognitive, and language tasks. Earlier vocabulary and speechreading skills predicted longitudinal growth in reading achievement. The relations between reading and the predictor variables showed developmental change. Earlier reading ability was related to later phonological awareness skills, suggesting that deaf children might develop their phonological awareness through reading. Deaf children who had the most age-appropriate reading skills tended to have less severe hearing losses and earlier diagnoses and also preferred to communicate through speech. The theoretical implications of the role for speechreading, vocabulary and phonological awareness in deaf childrens literacy are discussed.

Longitudinal Patterns of Emerging Literacy in Beginning Deaf and Hearing Readers

The emerging reading and spelling abilities of 24 deaf and 23 hearing beginning readers were followed over 2 years. The deaf children varied in their language backgrounds and preferred mode of communication. All children were given a range of literacy, cognitive and language-based tasks every 12 months. Deaf and hearing children made similar progress in literacy in the beginning stages of reading development and then their trajectories began to diverge. The longitudinal correlates of beginning reading in the deaf children were earlier vocabulary, letter-sound knowledge, and speechreading. Earlier phonological awareness was not a longitudinal correlate of reading ability once earlier reading levels were controlled. Only letter name knowledge was longitudinally related to spelling ability. Speechreading was also a strong longitudinal correlate of reading and spelling in the hearing children. The findings suggested that deaf and hearing children utilize slightly different reading strategies over the first 2 years of schooling.

The relative contributions of speechreading and vocabulary to deaf and hearing children's reading ability

Highlights • Speechreading predicted both reading accuracy and comprehension in deaf children.• Speechreading predicted only reading accuracy in hearing children.• Vocabulary was strongest predictor of reading in both deaf and hearing children.• Deaf children who preferred to communicate through speech were better speechreaders.• Findings were discussed with reference to the Simple View of Reading.

Literacy Outcomes for Primary School Children Who Are Deaf and Hard of Hearing: A Cohort Comparison Study

Purpose In this study, we compared the language and literacy of two cohorts of children with severe-profound hearing loss, recruited 10 years apart, to determine if outcomes had improved in line with the introduction of newborn hearing screening and access to improved hearing aid technology. Method Forty-two children with deafness, aged 5-7 years with a mean unaided loss of 102 DB, were assessed on language, reading, and phonological skills. Their performance was compared with that of a similar group of 32 children with deafness assessed 10 years earlier and also a group of 40 children with normal hearing of similar single word reading ability. Results English vocabulary was significantly higher in the new cohort although it was still below chronological age. Phonological awareness and reading ability had not significantly changed over time. In both cohorts, English vocabulary predicted reading, but phonological awareness was only a significant predictor for the new cohort. Conclusions The current results show that vocabulary knowledge of children with severe-profound hearing loss has improved over time, but there has not been a commensurate improvement in phonological skills or reading. They suggest that children with severe-profound hearing loss will require continued support to develop robust phonological coding skills to underpin reading.

Concurrent and Longitudinal Predictors of Reading for Deaf and Hearing Children in Primary School

Forty-one children with severe-profound prelingual hearing loss were assessed on single word reading, reading comprehension, English vocabulary, phonological awareness and speechreading at three time points, 1 year apart (T1-T3). Their progress was compared with that of a group of hearing children of similar nonverbal IQ, initially reading at the same level. Single word reading improved at each assessment point for the deaf children but there was no growth in reading comprehension from T2 to T3. There were no differences between children with cochlear implants and those with hearing aids on either reading measure but orally educated children had higher scores than children who signed in the classroom. English vocabulary and speechreading were the most consistent longitudinal predictors of reading for the deaf children. Phonological awareness was the most consistent longitudinal predictor for the hearing group and also a concurrent predictor of reading at T3 for both groups. There were many more significant correlations among the various measures for the deaf children than the hearing at both T1 and T3, suggesting that skills underpinning reading, including phonological awareness and vocabulary, are more closely related for deaf children. Implications of these findings for of deaf childrens literacy are explored.

Spelling in oral deaf and hearing dyslexic children: A comparison of phonologically plausible errors

A written single word spelling to dictation test and a single word reading test were given to 68 severe-profoundly oral deaf 10-11-year-old children and 20 hearing children with a diagnosis of dyslexia. The literacy scores of the deaf children and the hearing children with dyslexia were lower than expected for children of their age and did not differ from each other. Three quarters of the spelling errors of hearing children with dyslexia compared with just over half the errors of the oral deaf group were phonologically plausible. Expressive vocabulary and speech intelligibility predicted the percentage of phonologically plausible errors in the deaf group only. Implications of findings for the phonological decoding self-teaching model and for supporting literacy development are discussed.

Book Review: Advances in the Sign Language Development of Deaf Children Edited by B. Schick, M. Marschark & P. E. Spencer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). Pp. 396. ISBN 0-19-518094-1 (Hbk)

Agreeing to review this volume provided me with the perfect excuse to sit down with a book that I had wanted to read for several months and, I am pleased to say, it did not disappoint. The book provides the reader with a comprehensive yet concise synthesis of current research on how sign language develops in deaf children, with contributions from many of the world’s leading researchers in the field. This is therefore a very timely addition to the literature, and it will be welcomed by professionals and researchers alike. In contrast to previous books concerning language development in deaf children, the field has now reached a point where the volume of research and current understanding necessitates a book dedicated solely to the development of sign language in deaf children. This marks a tremendous step forward for the field, providing as it does an indication of both the scope and breadth of research now being conducted on the language of deaf children. The spoken language development of deaf children is charted separately in a second, complementary volume, by the same editors and publishers: Advances in the Spoken Language Development of Deaf and Hardof-Hearing Children. Readers with broad interests in language development in deaf children are well advised to read both volumes in conjunction with one another. The book under consideration here opens with two background chapters providing an overview of sign language research which helps to set the scene for the chapters that follow. Marschark, Schick and Spencer (Chapter 1) detail the important historical, political and cultural background to sign language research, which should be considered as essential reading for anyone new to the field. In Chapter 2, Slobin discusses potential methodological pitfalls in sign language research and the difficulties encountered when comparing signed and spoken languages. He succeeds very well in introducing basic concepts such as linguistic typology without the chapter reading like an introductory textbook. The subsequent 12 chapters tackle all the topics in language development that one might expect, including vocabulary, syntax, grammar, narrative and articulatory BOOK REVIEWS