title: The English-Language and Reading Achievement of a Cohort of Deaf Students Speaking and Signing Standard English: A Preliminary Study.
abstract: Research suggests that English-language proficiency is critical if students who are deaf or hard of hearing (D/HH) are to read as their hearing peers. One explanation for the traditionally reported reading achievement plateau when students are D/HH is the inability to hear insalient English morphology. Signing Exact English can provide visual access to these features. The authors investigated the English morphological and syntactic abilities and reading achievement of elementary and middle school students at a school using simultaneously spoken and signed Standard American English facilitated by intentional listening, speech, and language strategies. A developmental trend (and no plateau) in language and reading achievement was detected; most participants demonstrated average or above-average English. Morphological awareness was prerequisite to high test scores; speech was not significantly correlated with achievement; language proficiency, measured by the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-4 (Semel, Wiig, & Secord, 2003), predicted reading achievement.
authors.forename: Diane Corcoran
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Nielsen
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Luetke
authors.forename: Meigan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: McLean
authors.forename: Deborah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Stryker
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior; D041923:Adolescent Development; D001364:Awareness; D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003638:Deafness / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D060345:Education of Persons with Hearing Disabilities / Q000379:methods*; D004521:Educational Measurement; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D019986:Persons with Hearing Disabilities / Q000523:psychology*; D011932:Reading; D012813:Sign Language; D013060:Speech