The Use of Cumulative Cloze to Investigate Contextual Build-Up in Deaf and Hearing Readers

Abstract

This study finds no significant differences between deaf and hearing readers' sensitivity to contextual build-up as evaluated in a cumulative cloze exercise measured by a 2 X 5 X 2 factorial design using readers at the eighth, tenth and twelfth grade levels. Differences favoring hearing readers have been documented at the fourth and sixth grade levels. Results from the current study and its antecedents indicate that readers in both groups predict meaning more accurately when given passage-level rather than sentence-level contextual constraints. Additionally, both groups predict meaning more accurately and their predictions become more semantically and grammatically acceptable as the amount of contextual information increases. Deaf readers, however, tend to abandon correct choices more often than do hearing readers.