The effect of task in deaf readers' graphophonological processes: a longitudinal study.

Area of Science:

• Linguistics
• Developmental Psychology
• Special Education

Background:

• Deaf readers often exhibit phonological deficits, impacting reading acquisition.
• Previous research on phonological processing in deaf individuals yields conflicting results.
• Graphophonological processes, linking oral and written language, are crucial for reading.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate graphophonological processing in deaf French readers over one year.
• To evaluate graphophonemic and graphosyllabic processes under varying cognitive constraints.
• To compare deaf readers to normal readers matched for reading ability and chronological age.

Main Methods:

• Nineteen 11-year-old deaf students participated.
• Two tasks (low and high cognitive constraints) assessed graphophonemic and graphosyllabic skills.
• Performance was measured by accuracy and response latency, compared across groups and over time.

Main Results:

• Deaf readers actively engage in graphophonological processing.
• Graphophonological skills correlate significantly with reading ability.
• Deaf participants' performance resembled younger readers with similar reading levels (RA), not same-age peers (CA).

Conclusions:

• Deaf readers utilize graphophonological mechanisms in reading French.
• Performance differences highlight the importance of reading level over chronological age for these processes.
• Findings contribute to understanding phonology's role in reading acquisition for deaf learners.