A comparison of deaf and hearing children’s reading comprehension profiles

Kyle, Fiona E. and Cain, Kate (2015) A comparison of deaf and hearing children’s reading comprehension profiles. Topics in Language Disorders, 35 (2). pp. 144-156. ISSN 0271-8294

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Abstract

Purpose: Although deaf children typically exhibit severe delays in reading achievement, there is a paucity of research looking at their text level comprehension skills. We present a comparison of deaf and normally hearing readers’ profiles on a commonly used reading comprehension assessment: the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability (NARA-II). Methods: Comprehension questions were coded into three types: literal questions; local cohesion questions; and global coherence questions. Deaf children were matched to three groups of hearing children: chronological age matched controls, reading age matched controls; and a group of poor comprehenders. Results: Deaf children had significantly weaker reading comprehension skills than both chronological and reading-age matched controls but their skills were commensurate with poor comprehenders. All groups found it easier to make inferences to establish local cohesion than those required to establish global coherence. Discussion/conclusions: These results suggest that deaf children’s reading comprehension profiles are remarkably similar to those of poor comprehenders. These findings are discussed in light of the potential differences in underlying causes of reading difficulties in these two groups.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Topics in Language Disorders
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3300/3310
Subjects:
?? linguistics and languagelanguage and linguisticsspeech and hearing ??
ID Code:
73068
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
25 Feb 2015 09:32
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
05 Dec 2024 00:31