A Study of Children’S Hearing as it Relates to Reading

Abstract

In recent years the question of reading and reading difficulties has occupied an important place in educational and psychological litera ture. Probably no question has been raised with greater frequency than that concerning the causes of reading deficiencies found with apparently unhandicapped school chil dren. A number of possible causes have been suggested and studied more or less thor oughly. Such suggested causes have included practically every phase of human adjustment ?emotional, intellectual, physical, environ mental, and pedagogical. In 1932 Marion Monroe published one of the most significant of the books dealing ob jectively and specifically with the problems of reading difficulties.1 This book has been followed by other books which also deal with the causative factors and remedial procedures in reading disability. Many of the recent gen eral books on reading contain at least one chapter devoted to the problems of diagnosis and remediation of reading difficulties. Certainly no author at the present time claims that any one factor is the sole cause of reading disability but rather the concept of multiple causation is being given greater emphasis. Among the factors which are pro posed as possible contributors to reading dif ficulty hearing deficiency is referred to fre quently. Monroe mentioned it but cited no evidence beyond stating that on a whispered voice and coin click tests 2 per cent of the reading defect cases in her study were rated as defective in hearing.2 Gates,3,4 Betts,5 Monroe and Backus,6 Witty and Kopel,7 and Strang,8,9 also men tion hearing as a possible contributing factor to reading difficulty and all cite as their only supporting evidence a study by Bond.10 Cole,11 and Stanger and Donahue,12 Durrell,13 Kirk,14 and Dolch15 mention hearing but give no direct reference to any study showing a relationship between hearing and reading, although they do make reference to two of the authors mentioned above?namely Betts and Gates. Only two, those by McCallister16 and Dearborn,17 of fifteen of the most recent books on reading or reading difficulties fail to mention hearing deficiency as a possible related factor. Since it is well known that deaf children