| Reading and verbal-sequential memory for printed material are both greatly facilitated by a strong skill-base in phonological processing. Whereas in most hearing children, phonological processing abilities develop naturally through hearing spoken language, deaf children must develop this skill through different means if they are to develop it at all. This study examines the different skill levels of phonological processing in two groups of deaf adolescents: those who use American Sign Language (ASL) and those who use Cued Speech. Phonological processing abilities were also examined in regard to how they relate to reading skill and sequential memory for printed words. Thirty-two subjects participated in this study: Twenty were deaf and 12 were hearing control subjects. Of the deaf subjects, 10 used ASL as their primary mode of communication and the remaining 10 used Cued Speech as their primary mode of communication. Subjects received a brief reading measure (The "Passage Comprehension" subtest of the Woodcock Johnson Tests of Academic Achievement-Revised), a computerized encoding measure, and a paper-and-pencil test measuring phonological processing and visual word-recognition. As predicted, Cued Speech subjects performed significantly better than ASL subjects on measures of phonological processing, visual word recognition, and reading. Also, Cued Speech subjects did not differ from hearing control subjects in reading, nor on most measures of phonological processing and visual word recognition. Across all subjects, performance on the measures of phonological processing and visual word recognition correlated with performance on the reading task, with the exception of two submeasures of the visual word recognition task which, through intercorrelation and factor analyses, were found to differ fundamentally from the rest of the visual word recognition task and the phonological processing tasks. Contrary to predictions, none of the subject groups chose any one encoding method (phonemic, graphemic, semantic, or sign-based [cheremic]) over all the others, although Cued Speech subjects used phonemic encoding more often than either semantic or cheremic encoding. Hearing subjects used graphemic encoding more often than either semantic or cheremic encoding but did not encode phonemically more often than graphemic encoding, contradicting past research findings. The Cued Speech group encoded phonemically more often than did ASL subjects. Phonemic encoding was not found to be correlated with scores of phonemic processing, visual word recognition, nor reading. However when the hearing group was removed from analysis due to atypical responses, phonemic encoding correlated significantly with scores in phonological processing and visual word recognition, and the correlation between phonemic encoding and reading scores narrowly missed significance. Faulty design of the encoding task and small sample size are believed to be the main causes of the unusual results of the encoding task. The implications of these findings are discussed in regard to deaf education as well as assessment of reading and phonological processing in deaf individuals. |
