Cognitive Processes of Deaf and Hearing Skilled and Less Skilled Readers

This study was designed to investigate whether inferences about predictable events are drawn in a similar manner by deaf and hearing readers and whether the drawing of infer-ences varies as a function of reading level. One hundred twenty college students participated, 40 hearing and 80 deaf. The hearing students and 40 of the deaf students scored above 10.0 on the California Reading Test. The other 40 deaf students scored between 6.5 and 7. 5. Each subject read 40 passages representing four inference conditions. After each, they performed a lexical decision task and a comprehension task. Results indicated that passages that invited an inference provided a facilitative context for word recognition for all subjects. The deaf less skilled readers were significantly slower and made significantly more errors, supporting a difference in reading performance related to word recogni-tion and lexical access inefficiency. Deaf skilled readers were not differentiated from hearing readers and showed evidence of rapid and accurate word decoding. It is well documented that individuals in the United States who are deaf have a difficult challenge learning to read in English. In a study by the Office of Demo-graphic Studies at Gallaudet University, Trybus and Karchmer (1977) reported that the median reading level at age 20 years was the grade equivalent of 4.5 and that only 10 % of the very best reading group (18-year-olds) read at or above the eighth-grade level. Studies reviewed by Quigley and Paul (1994) indicated that A version of this article was presented at the 18th International Congress