The reading comprehension and visual word recognition in 50 deaf children and adolescents with at least 3 years of cochlear implant (CI) use were evaluated. Their skills were contrasted with reference data of 500 deaf children without CIs. The reading comprehension level in children with CIs was expected to surpass that in deaf children without implants, partly via improved visual word recognition. Reading comprehension scores of children with implants were significantly better than those of deaf children without implants, although the performance in implant users was substantially lagging behind that in hearing children. Visual word recognition was better in children with CIs than in children without implants, in secondary education only. No difference in visual word recognition was found between the children with CIs and the hearing children, whereas the deaf children without implants showed a slightly poorer performance. The difference in reading comprehension performance of the deaf children with and without CIs remained present when visual word recognition was controlled for. This indicates that other reading-related skills were also contributing to the improved reading comprehension skills of deaf children with CIs.
Introduction. Teachers and researchers often need to evaluate word decoding skill in groupwise and in a short time. The LEO-1-min test is created to measure word reading through a lexical decision procedure where the examinee identifies pseudowords in a list of frequent words. Objetive. To examine the reliability and validity of LEO-1-min, a silent word reading test, suitable for quick assess of reading abilities in a wide age range of students. Method. Participants were 284 children from 1 st to 6 th grade of a subsidized Primary School. We created four alternate forms of the LEO-1-min, each with 180 stimuli (132 words and 48 pseudowords). Results. The results show an adequate parallel forms reliability of the scores (range rs = from .57 to .81). High correlations were found between the scores on the LEO-1-min and the scores on a standardized reading aloud test. The discriminant analysis of the scores on the LEO-1min shows a high level of success in predicting the oral word decoding performance. Discussion and Conclusion. LEO-1-min reliability is acceptable to good. Lexical decision in LEO-1-min and oral reading are highly correlated, which support using lexical decision as a groupwise test to screen for poor word readers. Form A of the test and provisional scales are presented for each primary grade.
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