Frequency and Predictability Effects in Eye Fixations for Skilled and Less-Skilled Deaf Readers

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Linguistics
• Deaf Education

Background:

• High illiteracy rates persist in the deaf population despite standard schooling.
• Previous research focused on word-level processing, with limited investigation into sentence-level comprehension in deaf readers.
• Prior studies indicated deaf readers may rely more heavily on contextual information than hearing readers.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between word frequency, predictability, and reading skill in deaf and hearing readers.
• To extend previous findings on contextual dependency in deaf readers.
• To differentiate the reading strategies of skilled deaf, less-skilled deaf, and skilled hearing readers.

Main Methods:

• A lexical decision task was employed with incomplete sentences.
• Participants included skilled hearing readers, skilled deaf readers, and less-skilled deaf readers.
• The study examined word integration within varying levels of contextual congruity, frequency, and predictability.

Main Results:

• Less-skilled deaf readers demonstrated a greater reliance on contextual cues for word processing compared to skilled deaf and hearing readers.
• Early effects of word frequency and predictability were observed across all reader groups.
• No interaction was found between word frequency and predictability for any of the groups.

Conclusions:

• The heightened dependency on context is specific to less-skilled deaf readers, not a universal trait of all deaf readers.
• Both word frequency and predictability play a role in early reading processes for deaf and hearing individuals.
• Understanding these reading dynamics can inform targeted educational interventions for deaf learners.