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

Abstract

This is the unspecified version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. The development of reading ability in a group of deaf children was followed over a three year period. 29 deaf children, aged 7-8 years old at the first assessment, participated in the study and every 12 months they were given a battery of literacy, cognitive and language based 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, earlier diagnoses and preferred to communicate through speech. The theoretical implications of the role for speechreading, vocabulary and phonological awareness in deaf children's literacy are discussed. Permanent repository link

Research Methods in Studying Reading and Literacy Development in Deaf Children Who Sign

“…Language delay has in fact been described as a hallmark of deafness (Musselman, 2000). In two longitudinal studies of reading development in deaf children from mixed language backgrounds (Kyle & Harris, 2010;, we found that vocabulary and speechreading were the strongest predictors of later reading ability. Other researchers have also found speechreading to be a strong correlate of reading in deaf children (e.g.…”

“…Hanson & Fowler, 1987;Kyle & Harris, 2006;Leybaert & Alegria, 1993). Kyle and Harris (2010) reported a strong relationship between phonological awareness and reading in deaf children; however, it is important to note that the direction of this relationship was in fact from reading to phonological awareness. This finding is important as it suggests that deaf children's phonological awareness skills develop as a consequence of learning to read rather than being a precursor of reading ability as is typically found in hearing children (see also Musselman, 2000;Goldin-Meadow & Mayberry, 2001).…”

“…Arnold & Kopsel, 1996;Campbell & Wright, 1988;Harris & Moreno, 2006) and deaf adults (Mohammed, Campbell, Macsweeney, Barry & Coleman, 2006). Although it is plausible to assume that deaf children who use speech would rely more upon speechreading than signing deaf children, the relationship between speechreading and reading has in fact been observed in deaf children from a range of language backgrounds (Harris & Moreno, 2006;Kyle & Harris, 2010;.…”

“…However, it is possible that signing deaf children may also learn to read in broadly the same manner because research suggests that similar skills are important for their reading development. Let us consider what a deaf phonological code might look like: as deaf individuals do not typically have full access to spoken language, it is likely that any phonological code would be based upon phonological representations derived from speechread input (see Hanson et al, 1983;Kyle & Harris, 2010;. It has been argued that a phonological code is abstract and not modality specific which means it could be derived equally from auditory or visual speech (Alegria, 1996;Campbell, 1997).…”

“…Strong & Prinz, 2000). On the face of it, these findings seem contradictory; however, the language preferences of the good deaf readers in Kyle and Harris (2010) help shed light on this issue. Although the good readers were predominately those who used speech to communicate, four of the seven best readers had also been exposed to BSL from an early age and one was a native BSL user with deaf parents.…”