An Analytical Study of the Reading Habits of Deaf Children

Abstract

The basic difference between deaf and hearing persons lies in their ability to use language. The interpretation of printed lan guage through reading is one of the most com plex phases of language usage; hence an an alysis of the reading habits of deaf children offers opportunity for the study of one of the highest types of language activities. A well-recognized method for analytical study of reading habits is that of making photographic records of eye-movements. The eye-movements of the reader indicate symp toms of three fundamental elements of the reading process. The average number of fix ations per line is purported to measure the span of recognition for the printed material, and to indicate to what degree the reader has approached the higher order of perceptual habits necessary for maturity in reading. The average duration of the fixation pauses is be lieved to measure the reader's rate of recogni tion of the perceptual unit, and the average number of regressive movements per line is assumed to indicate the regularity or rhyth mic progressive sequence of perceptions along the printed line. The photographic technique is valuable, therefore, for throwing light on certain devel opmental phases of reading which cannot be ascertained through any other method of measurement. Photographic records of the eye-movements of a reader offer material for an analysis of the complex process of his reading into constituent processes, and re veal the development in the specific factors which go to make up reading ability.1 For several years investigators have been interested in studying various abilities and achievements of deaf children, and in study ing the effect which their inability to acquire language in the normal way has upon their motor, associative, and perceptual learning; but no one has offered an analytical study of their habits of reading, revealed through photographic records of their eye-movements, as a method of investigating the effects of their language handicap upon the develop ment of the reading process. Photographic records of the eye-movements of hearing children show that reading is a process of rapid growth in its fundamental elements during the first four years of school experience, at the end of which time maturity is approximated; and that a high degree of correlation exists between the maturity of the subject in the fundamental eye-movement habits and his ability to comprehend printed material.2 In his study of the types and causes of failure in learning to read, Gray3 lists four teen significant ones, among which are poor auditory memory, inadequate speaking vocab ulary, small meaning vocabulary, and speech defects. Obviously, deaf children suffer from these four deficiencies. What effect do these deficiencies have upon the deaf child's read ing habits? Investigations4?r>'B show that for hearing children, ability in word perception correlates