Abstract
Many adults with profound prelingual deafness have difficulties reading and comprehending written English and this problem may originate from English phonological deficits and/or difficulties connecting sign language with written English. The purpose of this study was, therefore, to investigate the word coding strategies of profoundly deaf adults with a view to identify to what extent they used speech-based and sign-based strategies to process English text. For the gathering of the data participants completed three tasks: (1) a measure examining the use of speech and sign-based word coding during reading (2) a phoneme awareness task (3) and a task assessing skill in applying grapheme-phoneme correspondences. Data was analysed using tests of difference (t-tests and ANOVA) with the findings showing that while the less proficient readers had significantly greater English phonological deficits they reported only a minimal use of supplementary sign language coding strategies. Surprisingly, some of the proficient readers, with good English phonological skills chose to supplement them with some sign-based strategies. The possible reasons and instructional implications for these findings are discussed. Keywords: phonological; adults; reading; deaf; sign-language DOI: http://doi.org/10.17576/3L-2016-2203-01
Highlights
Those adults with a profound hearing loss who have difficulty comprehending English text are often prevented from gaining access to further social, educational and employment opportunities
In the present study there were proficient readers with good phonological skills that reported using sign-based strategies, suggesting that sign-based coding strategies might play a role in reading proficiency
When the participants were given an instructive example in the phonemic awareness task some degree of priming may have occurred. Another possible confound is that the participants in the study spanned three generations and as a result probably experienced different forms of reading instruction which may have impacted on their phoneme awareness and subsequent reading scores
Summary
Those adults with a profound hearing loss who have difficulty comprehending English text are often prevented from gaining access to further social, educational and employment opportunities. While profoundly deaf adults may experience frustration and failure most understand the need for English literacy skills. As well as being intimately linked to employment opportunities written English is frequently the only way they have to communicate with their hearing counterparts. The challenge of reading and understanding written text is seen by some as being linked to their profound hearing loss, language difficulties and some instructional practices (Clark et al 2016, Herrera-Fernandez, PuenteFerreras & Alvarado-Izquierdo 2014, Paul 2002). The average equivalent reading level is only at about the eighth grade (Bochner & Walter 2004), a fact of particular importance as literacy development for both deaf and hearing students is seen as critical for academic and workplace advancement (Furlonger & Rickards 2011, Zin, Wong & Rafik-Galea 2014)
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