An investigation of the word processing skills of deaf and hearing readers

The present study investigates differences in the word processing skills between deaf and hearing readers. The participants were 153 students (78 of them hearing, 75 of them deaf) evenly and randomly recruited from three levels of education (primary = 3^rd-4^th graders; middle = 6 ^th-7^th graders; high = 9^th-10^th graders). The students were tested with four computerized paradigms assessing their processing of isolated real\pseudc-word pairs under perceptual and conceptual conditions and their semantic word processing skills. Findings from the present study indeed point that although deaf participants tested in the study processed written words slower but similar accuracy than then-hearing counterparts, they performed worse (both in speed of processing and accuracy) in semantic processing of real words (word relatedness) than their hearing counterparts and this difference was also consistent according to the educational levels of the participants.