Orthographic learning in children who are deaf or hard of hearing

Malin Wass, Teresa Y.C. Ching, Linda Cupples, Hua Chen Wang, Björn Lyxell, Louise Martin, Laura Button, Miriam Gunnourie, Isabelle Boisvert, Catherine McMahon, Anne Castles

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    12 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Purpose The purpose of the current study was to investigate the relationship between orthographic learning and language, reading, and cognitive skills in 9-year-old children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) and to compare their performance to age-matched typically hearing (TH) controls.

    Method Eighteen children diagnosed with moderate-to-profound hearing loss who use hearing aids and/or cochlear implants participated. Their performance was compared with 35 age-matched controls with typical hearing. Orthographic learning was evaluated using a spelling task and a recognition task. The children were assessed on measures of reading ability, language, working memory, and paired-associate learning.

    Results On average, the DHH group performed more poorly than the TH controls on the spelling measure of orthographic learning, but not on the recognition measure. For both groups of children, there were significant correlations between orthographic learning and phonological decoding and between visual–verbal paired-associate learning and orthographic learning.

    Conclusions Although the children who are DHH had lower scores in the spelling test of orthographic learning than their TH peers, measures of their reading ability revealed that they acquired orthographic representations successfully. The results are consistent with the self-teaching hypothesis in suggesting that phonological decoding is important for orthographic learning.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)99-112
    Number of pages14
    JournalLanguage, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools
    Volume50
    Issue number1
    Early online date2018
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 28 Jan 2019

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Orthographic learning in children who are deaf or hard of hearing'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this