Processing of Bottom-up and Top-Down Information by Skilled and Average Deaf Readers and Implications for Whole Language Instruction

To explicate the competence of skilled deaf readers, this study compared groups of high- and average-ability, secondary-level, deaf readers on five indicators of cognitive processes used during reading. Two indicators focused on fluency in processing visual information; three measured readers' application of higher-level processes. Results indicated significant differences between the groups on the measures of fluency. However, intergroup similarities on the indexes of higher-level processing suggest that these components do not determine the reading superiority of the skilled readers. The findings suggest that whole language instructional practices, increasingly popular in deaf education, need to address the development of processing fluency in deaf readers.