Correlates of Korean Hangul Reading in Children With Hearing Loss

This study examined the associations of vocabulary and phonological and orthographic awareness with Hangul word reading in Korean children, aged between 7 and 10 years, who were deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) and children with typical hearing (TH). The participants were 24 children with hearing aids (HAs), 24 children with cochlear implants (CIs), and 24 TH children in Korea. The three groups were matched for chronological age, vocabulary age, and nonverbal intelligence. Results showed that there were no differences between children with CIs and those with HAs in reading fluency and cognitive skills, except word-reading accuracy, whereas children with CIs and HAs were delayed in all measures compared with their TH peers. Regression analyses showed that syllable and phoneme awareness uniquely explained word-reading accuracy in children with DHH and those with TH. However, word-reading fluency was uniquely explained by syllable awareness in the DHH children and by vocabulary and orthographic awareness in the TH children. These results suggest that DHH and TH children in Korea rely on phonological awareness for Korean word recognition. However, DHH and TH Korean children tend to use different strategies based on sublexical versus lexical information, respectively, to read Korean words fluently.