Literacy and Phonological Skills in Oral Deaf Children and Hearing Children With a History of Dyslexia

Abstract

Oral deaf children and hearing children with dyslexia both experience literacy challenges, although their reasons differ. The authors explored the problems underlying poor literacy in each group and drew implications for reading interventions. Data were collected using standardized literacy and phonological measures from 69 severe‐to‐profoundly prelingually deaf children ages 10 and 11 years, all communicating with spoken language, and compared with equivalent data from 20 hearing children with a history of dyslexia matched on reading ability. Children were given a large battery of tasks assessing word and nonword reading, spelling, vocabulary, and reading‐related skills, including letter sound knowledge, phonological awareness, rapid automated naming, and verbal short‐term memory. Striking similarities were observed for word reading, nonword reading, and spelling across groups, and associations between the measures and reading‐related skills were similar. However, differences between the two groups emerged in the strength of association between literacy and vocabulary. Regression analyses confirmed vocabulary as a key predictor of literacy in the oral deaf group. These results suggest that not only children with a history of dyslexia but also oral deaf children who struggle with reading should receive specialist literacy support. Reading interventions for oral deaf children should target phonological and language skills within a fully integrated approach.

Speechreading Ability Is Related to Phonological Awareness and Single-Word Reading in Both Deaf and Hearing Children

“…It is worth highlighting that, in the current sample of deaf children, phonological awareness was strongly related to single-word reading ability (r = .61 for onset matching with YARC Single-Word Reading subtest). This supports numerous previous studies that have reported a correlation between phonological awareness and reading development in deaf children (Campbell & Wright, 1988;Dyer et al, 2003;Harris & Beech, 1998;Herman et al, 2019). Factors such as the age of the children tested and the measures used are likely to influence the strength of this relationship, and these factors may explain the inconsistencies between previous studies (see Mayberry et al, 2011).…”

Spelling in Deaf, Hard of Hearing and Hearing Children With Sign Language Knowledge

“…The authors found striking similarities in spelling, word reading and non-word reading in both DHH children and children with dyslexia, and in line with earlier studies, the DHH-children showed poor phonological awareness. The children with dyslexia had a larger vocabulary than the DHH-children, and vocabulary was shown to be a strong predictor for good literacy outcomes for the group of deaf children, but not for the group with children with dyslexia (Herman et al, 2019).…”

Predictors of Word and Text Reading Fluency of Deaf Children in Bilingual Deaf Education Programmes

“…Many prior studies identifying vocabulary as a strong predictor of reading achievement in deaf children have focused on expressive vocabulary (e.g., Easterbrooks and Huston 2008;Kyle and Harris 2006;Kyle et al 2016;Herman et al 2019). Measuring expressive vocabulary allows researchers to deal with the variability in language background typically found in deaf children.…”