title: Factors distinguishing skilled and less skilled deaf readers: evidence from four orthographies.
abstract: This study aims to enhance understanding of the factors underlying variance in the reading comprehension skills of prelingually deaf individuals. Participants were 213 sixth through tenth graders with prelingual deafness recruited from four orthographic backgrounds (Hebrew, Arabic, English, and German) and allocated to three distinct reading profiles (levels). A sentence comprehension test manipulating the semantic plausibility of sentences and a word processing experiment requiring rapid determination of the semantic relationship between two real words or between a real word and a pseudohomophonic letter string were used to determine the factors distinguishing skilled from less skilled deaf readers. Findings point to deficits in structural (syntactic) knowledge and deficient knowledge structures, rather than differences in phonological processing skills, as making that distinction. Moreover, the acquisition of such knowledge seems to be modified by particularities of the read orthography.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel. mpaul@construct.haifa.ac.il
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: Tevhide
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kargin
authors.forename: Birkan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Guldenoglu
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rathmann
authors.forename: Okan
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Kubus
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hauser
authors.forename: Erin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Spurgeon
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D018912:Arabs / Q000208:ethnology; D002648:Child; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D003638:Deafness / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology*; D004739:England / Q000208:ethnology; D005858:Germany / Q000208:ethnology; D006801:Humans; D007557:Israel / Q000208:ethnology; D007802:Language; D007807:Language Tests; D008606:Mental Processes / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics