Reading Skills in Deaf Subjects: Role of Psycholinguistic Factors and Global Influences in Affecting Reading Performance

Abstract

The present study examined the role of psycholinguistic variables, as well as the presence of a global factor, in modulating reading speed and accuracy in individuals with a severe hearing impairment. Thirteen deaf and thirteen hearing young adults who completed high school and were proficient in both oral lipreading and Italian sign language were examined and compared to a group of control subjects matched for gender, age and education. A wide spectrum of psycholinguistic variables affecting reading were examined, marking visual (letter confusability), sub-lexical (length, grapheme contextuality), lexical (frequency, N-size, stress) and semantic (age of acquisition and imageability) processes. Vocal reaction times (RT) in reading aloud single words were slower in deaf participants with respect to hearing subjects but they were affected by psycholinguistic variables in a very similar way than in the case of controls. Moreover, deaf individuals did not show a multiplicative effect as a function of word difficulty in their reading slowness but only a constant delay. Overall, the deficit shown by deaf participants was relatively limited and not associated to specific cognitive processes. This finding is in keeping with the idea that at least some individuals with a severe hearing impairment may reach reasonably high levels of word decoding.

Writing composition ability and spelling competence in deaf subjects: a psycholinguistic analysis of source of difficulties

“…Despite their difficulties along the phonological sublexical procedure, deaf participants seem to benefit from the support of the lexical spelling procedure and its facilitated effects for high-frequency words with respect to low-frequency ones (consistent with another study, Sutcliffe et al, 1999). Our data are also consistent with a study previously conducted showing that deaf people can achieve reasonably high levels of word decoding, even though they are slower and less accurate than hearing controls (Marinelli et al, 2019). However, caution is needed, as the present results are based on deaf adults with a high level of schooling and educated in a bilingual context.…”

“…• Normal performance on a nonverbal intelligence test (mean = 45.13; SD = 4.53) on Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (Raven, 2008). • Absence of other sensory, psychiatric, or neurological deficits, except deafness, following an ad hoc structured anamnestic questionnaire (see also Marinelli et al, 2019).…”

“…Deaf and control participants of the present study were studied comprehensively for their reading abilities. A full portrait of their reading skills is reported in a previous publication (see Marinelli et al, 2019).…”