Similarities and Differences in the Processing of Written Text by Skilled and Less Skilled Readers With Prelingual Deafness

This study focuses on similarities and differences in the processing of written text by individuals with prelingual deafness from different reading levels that used Hebrew as their first spoken language and Israeli Sign Language as their primary manual communication mode. Data were gathered from three sources, including (a) a sentence comprehension test, (b) a metalinguistic awareness (MLA) test, and (c) a word-processing experiment. Participants were 62 individuals who were prelingually deaf, of whom 36 were high school students (10th and 11th graders) and 26 were undergraduate or graduate university students. Findings imply that neither MLA nor word-processing efficiency distinguishes between skilled and less skilled readers with deafness. Rather, differences in reading comprehension skills seem to reflect variance in the ability to process text at the supralexical (sentence) level. Findings are discussed with regard to their implication for the reading instruction for students who are prelingually deaf.