Simple View of Reading in Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Adults

The present study investigated the relative contribution of the two components in the simple view of reading to the reading comprehension skills of deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) adults in the Netherlands. Eighty DHH adults, aged between 30 and 80 years old, were tested on word reading, reading fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. Regression analyses showed that both decoding skills and vocabulary contributed to the reading comprehension skills of DHH adults, with vocabulary being the strongest predictor. For skilled decoders, the picture was somewhat different with only vocabulary being a predictor of reading comprehension. The results of this study show that the simple view of reading is applicable to DHH adults' reading comprehension skills: both decoding skills and vocabulary contribute to reading comprehension. Also, as in previous studies on the simple view of reading, as readers become more skilled in the decoding process, vocabulary becomes the only predictor of reading comprehension.