Verbal sequential processing skills and reading ability in deaf individuals using cued speech and signed communication

Research has implicated verbal sequential processing or verbal memory as a skill, that is associated with reading success in hearing individuals. In hearing individuals ability to temporally recall verbal information is facilitated by phonological processing abilities, which are thought to develop naturally through experience with spoken language. This leads to the question of how verbal sequential processing is developed in individuals who are pre-lingually deaf and have little or no access to auditory information. Deaf individuals from signing and oral communication backgrounds have been shown to perform poorly on verbally sequential processing tasks in comparison to hearing individuals, and researchers have identified weak phonological skills as the underlying basis for these findings. It is also well known that the majority of deaf individuals have considerable difficulty developing reading competency. To date, no studies have specifically examined and compared the verbal sequential processing skills and is a reading ability of deaf individuals who use Cued Speech. Cued Speech is a visual communication system that gives deaf individuals access to spoken language, which provides the necessary prerequisite phonological skills for reading.;The present study investigated the verbal sequential processing and reading ability of deaf individuals using Cued Speech and Signed Communication. Forty-five subjects participated in this study. Twenty-nine were deaf and 16 were hearing control subjects. Of the deaf subjects, 14 used Cued Speech and 15 used Signed Communication (American Sign Language or English-based sign systems). Subjects received two measures of verbal sequential processing: Digit-Recall and Word-Recall, the Passage Comprehension subtest of the Woodcock Johnson Tests of Achievement-Revised and the Matrices subtest of the Kaufman Brief Intellectual Test. As predicted the Cued Speech subjects performed significantly better than the Signed Communication subjects on measures of verbal sequential processing and reading. Cued Speech subjects did not differ from hearing control subjects on measures of verbal sequential processing and in reading. However when parent education level and IQ were controlled Cued Speech subjects did differ in reading from hearing subjects. Performance on measures of verbal sequential processing correlated with performance on the reading task in Cued Speech and hearing subjects, but not in the Signed Communication subjects. Over utilization of top-down processes during reading and small sample size are believed to be the primary reason for the lack of correlation found between these variables in the Signed Communication group. The implications of these results are discussed with regard to deaf education and the link between language experience, verbal sequential processing skills and reading.