Orthographic Learning in Children Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing
Publication: Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools
Volume 50, Number 1
Pages 99-112
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the current study was to investigate the relationship between orthographic learning and language, reading, and cognitive skills in 9-year-old children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) and to compare their performance to age-matched typically hearing (TH) controls.
Method
Eighteen children diagnosed with moderate-to-profound hearing loss who use hearing aids and/or cochlear implants participated. Their performance was compared with 35 age-matched controls with typical hearing. Orthographic learning was evaluated using a spelling task and a recognition task. The children were assessed on measures of reading ability, language, working memory, and paired-associate learning.
Results
On average, the DHH group performed more poorly than the TH controls on the spelling measure of orthographic learning, but not on the recognition measure. For both groups of children, there were significant correlations between orthographic learning and phonological decoding and between visual–verbal paired-associate learning and orthographic learning.
Conclusions
Although the children who are DHH had lower scores in the spelling test of orthographic learning than their TH peers, measures of their reading ability revealed that they acquired orthographic representations successfully. The results are consistent with the self-teaching hypothesis in suggesting that phonological decoding is important for orthographic learning.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
Allen, R. J., Hitch, G. J., & Baddeley, A. D. (2009). Cross-modal binding and working memory. Visual Cognition, 17, 83–102.
Anderson, J. R., & Bower, G. H. (1972). Recognition and retrieval processes in free recall. Psychological Review, 79, 97–123.
Anthony, J. L., & Francis, D. J. (2005). Development of phonological awareness. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14, 255–259.
Baddeley, A. (2012). Working memory: Theories, models, and controversies. Annual Review of Psychology, 63, 1–29.
Bender, R., & Lange, S. (2001). Adjusting for multiple testing—When and how? Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 54, 343–349.
Bowey, J. A., & Muller, D. (2005). Phonological recoding and rapid orthographic learning in third-graders’ silent reading: A critical test of the self-teaching hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 92(3), 203–219.
Brown, C. A., & Bacon, S. P. (2010). Fundamental frequency and speech intelligibility in background noise. Hearing Research, 266, 52–59.
Burgess, N., & Hitch, G. (2005). Computational models of working memory: Putting long-term memory into context. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9, 535–541.
Byrne, B., Coventry, W. L., Olson, R. K., Hulslander, J., Wadsworth, S., DeFries, J. C., … Samuelsson, S. (2008). A behaviour-genetic analysis of orthographic learning, spelling and decoding. Journal of Research in Reading, 31, 8–21.
Castles, A., Coltheart, M., Larsen, L., Jones, P., Saunders, S., & McArthur, G. (2009). Assessing the basic components of reading: A revision of the Castles and Coltheart test with new norms. Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties, 14(1), 67–88.
Castles, A., Davis, C., Cavalot, P., & Forster, K. (2007). Tracking the acquisition of orthographic skills in developing readers: Masked priming effects. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 97, 165–182.
Ching, T. Y. C., Leigh, G., & Dillon, H. (2013). Introduction to the Longitudinal Outcomes of Children with Hearing Impairment (LOCHI) study: Background, design, sample characteristics. International Journal of Audiology, 52, 4S–9S.
Coltheart, M., & Leahy, J. (1996). Assessment of lexical and nonlexical reading abilities in children: Some normative data. Australian Journal of Psychology, 48, 136–140.
Coltheart, M., Rastle, K., Perry, C., Langdon, R., & Ziegler, J. (2001). A dual route cascaded model of word recognition and reading aloud. Psychological Review, 108, 204–256.
Cunningham, A. E. (2006). Accounting for children's orthographic learning while reading text: Do children self-teach? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 95(1), 56–77.
Cunningham, A. E., Perry, K. E., Stanovich, K. E., & Share, D. L. (2002). Orthographic learning during reading: Examining the role of self-teaching. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 82, 185–199.
De Jong, P. F., Bitter, D. J. L., van Setten, M., & Marinus, E. (2009). Does phonological recoding occur during silent reading and is it necessary for orthographic learning? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 104, 267–282.
Dunn, L. M., & Dunn, D. M. (2007). Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test–Fourth Edition (PPVT-4). Bloomington, MN: NCS Pearson.
Ehri, L. C. (1992). Reconceptualizing the development of sight word reading and its relationship to recoding. In Gough, P., Ehri, L., & Treiman, R. (Eds.), Reading acquisition (pp. 107–143). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Ehri, L. C. (1998). Grapheme–phoneme knowledge is essential for learning to read words in English. In Metsala, J. & Ehri, L. (Eds.), Word recognition in beginning literacy (pp. 3–40). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Ehri, L. C. (2005). Learning to read words: Theory, findings, and issues. Scientific Studies of Reading, 9, 167–188.
Ehri, L. C. (2014). Orthographic mapping in the acquisition of sight word reading, spelling memory, and vocabulary learning. Scientific Studies of Reading, 18, 5–21.
Elliott, C. D., Smith, P., & McCulloch, K. (1996). British Ability Scales–Second Edition (BAS II). Windsor, England: NferNelson, 1996.
Fagan, M. K., & Pisoni, D. B. (2010). Hearing experience and receptive vocabulary development in deaf children with cochlear implants. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 15(2), 149–161.
Gathercole, S. E. (2006). Nonword repetition and word learning: The nature of the relationship. Applied Psycholinguistics, 27, 513–543.
Geers, A. E. (2003). Predictors of reading skill development in children with early cochlear implantation. Ear and Hearing, 24, 59S–68S.
Geers, A. E., & Hayes, H. (2011). Reading, writing, and phonological processing skills of adolescents with 10 or more years of cochlear implant experience. Ear and Hearing, 32(1), 49S–59S.
Geers, A. E., Moog, J. S., Biedenstein, J., Brenner, C., & Hayes, H. (2009). Spoken language scores of children using cochlear implants compared to hearing age-mates at school entry. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 14(3), 371–385.
Goswami, U., Wang, H. L., Cruz, A., Fosker, T., Mead, N., & Huss, N. (2010). Language-universal sensory deficits in developmental dyslexia: English, Spanish, and Chinese. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23(2), 325–337.
Harris, M., & Terlektsi, E. (2010). Reading and spelling abilities of deaf adolescents with cochlear implants and hearing aids. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 16(1), 24–34.
Hulme, C., Bowyer-Crane, C., Carroll, J. M., Duff, F. J., & Snowling, M. J. (2012). The causal role of phoneme awareness and letter–sound knowledge in learning to read: Combining intervention studies with mediation analyses. Psychological Science, 23(6), 572–577.
Hulme, C., Goetz, K., Gooch, D., Adams, J., & Snowling, M. J. (2007). Paired-associate learning, phoneme awareness, and learning to read. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 96, 150–166.
Johnson, C., & Goswami, U. (2010). Phonological awareness, vocabulary, and reading in deaf children with cochlear implants. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 53, 237–261.
Kohnen, S., Anandakumar, T., McArthur, G., & Castles, A. (2012). The Test of Orthographic Choice (TOC). Retrieved from http://www.motif.org.au
Kohnen, S., Nickels, L., & Castles, A. (2009). Assessing spelling skills and strategies: A critique of available resources. Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties, 14(1), 113–150.
Kyle, F. E., & Harris, M. (2006). Concurrent correlates and predictors of reading and spelling achievement in deaf and hearing school children. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 11(3), 273–288.
Kyte, C. S., & Johnson, C. J. (2006). The role of phonological recoding in orthographic learning. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 93, 166–185.
Landi, N., Perfetti, C. A., Bolger, D. J., Dunlap, S., & Foorman, B. R. (2006). The role of discourse context in developing word form representations. A paradoxical relation between reading and learning. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 94, 114–133.
Lervåg, A., Bråten, I., & Hulme, C. (2009). The cognitive and linguistic foundations of early reading development: A Norwegian latent variable longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology, 45(3), 764–781.
Leybaert, J. (2007). Learning to read with a hearing impairment. In Snowlin, M. J. & Hulme, C. (Eds.), The science of reading: A handbook (pp. 379–396). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Litt, R. A., De Jong, P. F., Van Bergen, E., & Nation, K. (2013). Dissociating crossmodal and verbal demands in paired associate learning (PAL): What drives the PAL-reading relationship? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 115, 137–149.
Litt, R. A., & Nation, K. (2014). The nature and specificity of paired associate learning deficits in children with dyslexia. Journal of Memory and Language, 71, 71–88.
Lyxell, B., Sahlén, B., Wass, M., Ibertsson, T., Larsby, B., Hällgren, M., & Mäki-Torkko, E. (2008). Cognitive development in children with cochlear implants: Relations to reading and communication. International Journal of Audiology, 47(S2), S47–S52.
Marinus, E., Kohnen, S., & McArthur, G. (2013). Australian comparison data for the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE). Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties, 18, 199–212.
Masterson, J., Stuart, M., Dixon, M., Lovejoy, D., & Lovejoy, S. (2003). The Children's Printed Word Database. Colchester, England: Department of Psychology, University of Essex.
Messbauer, V. C. S., & De Jong, P. F. (2003). Word, nonword, and visual paired associate learning in Dutch dyslexic children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 84(2), 77–96.
Miller-Guron, L. (1999). Wordchains: A word reading test for all ages. Windsor, England: NferNelson.
Moeller, M. P., Tomblin, J. B., Yoshinaga-Itano, C., McDonald Connor, C., & Jerger, S. (2007). Current state of knowledge: Language and literacy of children with hearing impairment. Ear and Hearing, 28(6), 740–753.
Nakeva von Mentzer, C., Lyxell, B., Sahlén, B., Dahlström, Ö., Lindgren, M., Ors, M., … Uhlén, I. (2014). Computer-assisted reading intervention with a phonics approach for children using cochlear implants or hearing aids. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 55, 448–455.
Nation, K., Angell, P., & Castles, A. (2007). Orthographic learning via self-teaching in children learning to read English: Effects of exposure, durability, and context. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 96(1), 71–84.
Nation, K., & Castles, A. (2017). Putting the learning in orthographic learning. In Cain, K., Compton, D., & Parilla, R. (Eds.), Theories of reading development (pp. 147–168). Amsterdam, the Netherlands: John Benjamins.
Perneger, T. V. (1998). What’s wrong with Bonferroni adjustments. British Medical Journal, 316, 1236–1238.
Pisoni, D. B., Conway, C. M., Kronenberger, W. G., Horn, D. L., Karpicke, J., & Henning, S. (2008). Efficacy and effectiveness of cochlear implants in deaf children. In: Marschark, M. & Hauser, P. (Eds.), Deaf cognition: Foundations and outcomes (pp. 52–101). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Rau, A. K., Moeller, K., & Landerl, K. (2014). The transition from sublexical to lexical processing in a consistent orthography: An eye-tracking study. Scientific Studies of Reading, 18, 224–233.
Shahar-Yames, D., & Share, D. L. (2008). Spelling as a self-teaching mechanism in orthographic learning. Journal of Research in Reading, 31, 22–39.
Share, D. L. (1995). Phonological recoding and self-teaching: Sine qua non of reading acquisition. Cognition, 55(2), 151–218.
Share, D. L. (1999). Phonological recoding and orthographic learning: A direct test of the self-teaching hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 72, 95–129.
Share, D. L. (2004). Orthographic learning at a glance: On the time course and developmental onset of self-teaching. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 87, 267–298.
Staresina, B. P., & Davachi, L. (2006). Differential encoding mechanisms for subsequent associative recognition and free recall. The Journal of Neuroscience, 26, 9162–9172.
Stiles, D. J., McGregor, K. K., & Bentler, R. A. (2012). Vocabulary and working memory in children fit with hearing aids. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 55, 154–167.
Tomblin, J. B., Harrison, M., Ambrose, S. E., Walker, E. A., Oleson, J. J., & Moeller, M. P. (2015). Language outcomes in young children with mild to severe hearing loss. Ear and Hearing, 36(Suppl. 1), 76S–91S.
Transler, C., & Reitsma, P. (2005). Phonological coding in reading of deaf children: Pseudohomophone effects in lexical decision. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 23, 525–542.
Vanderplas, J. M., & Garvin, E. A. (1959). The association value of random shapes. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 57, 147–154.
Wagner, R. K., Torgesen, J. K., & Rashotte, C. A. (1999). Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP). Oxford, United Kingdom: Pearson.
Wang, H. C., Castles, A., Nickels, L., & Nation, K. (2011). Context effects on orthographic learning of regular and irregular words. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 109(1), 39–57.
Wang, H. C., Wass, M., & Castles, A. (2017). Paired-associate learning ability accounts for unique variance in orthographic learning. Scientific Studies of Reading, 21(1), 5–16.
Wass, M., Ibertsson, T., Lyxell, B., Sahlén, B., Hällgren, M., Larsby, B., & Mäki-Torkko, E. (2008). Cognitive and linguistic skills in Swedish children with cochlear implants—Measures of accuracy and latency as indicators of development. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 49, 559–576.
Wegener, S., Wang, H. C., de Lissa, P., Robidoux, S., Nation, K., & Castles, A. (2018). Children reading spoken words: Interactions between vocabulary and orthographic expectancy. Developmental Science, 21, 1–9.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools
Volume 50 • Number 1 • January 2019
Pages: 99-112
PubMed: 30383206
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
History
- Received: Dec 10, 2017
- Revised: Mar 7, 2018
- Accepted: Jul 9, 2018
- Published in issue: Jan 28, 2019
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Article Metrics
View all metricsCitations
Download article citation data for:
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.
For more information or tips please see 'Downloading to a citation manager' in the Help menu.
Citing Literature
- Klemen Pečnik, Žana Juvan, Gregor Dolinar, Matevž Pogačnik, User experience questionnaire in sign language for native users of Slovenian sign language, Scientific Reports, 10.1038/s41598-025-89954-6, 15, 1, (2025).
- Malin Wass, Lena Anmyr, Björn Lyxell, Eva Karltorp, Elisabet Östlund, Ulrika Löfkvist, Longitudinal predictors of reading ability in children with CI learning to read in Swedish, Journal of Communication Disorders, 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2025.106497, 114, (106497), (2025).
- Elodie Sabatier, Jacqueline Leybaert, Fabienne Chetail, Orthographic Learning in French-Speaking Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children, Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 10.1044/2023_JSLHR-23-00324, 67, 3, (870-885), (2024).
- André Coy, Phaedra S. Mohammed, Paulson Skerrit, Inclusive Deaf Education Enabled by Artificial Intelligence: The Path to a Solution, International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 10.1007/s40593-024-00419-9, (2024).
- Mirna Mattar, Carole El Akiki, Jacqueline Leybaert, Lexical processing in children with hearing impairment in oral word reading in transparent Arabic orthography, Applied Psycholinguistics, 10.1017/S0142716423000437, 45, 1, (1-29), (2023).
- Ana Claudia Moreira Almeida-Verdu, Fernando Del Mando Lucchesi, Leandra Tabanez Nascimento Silva, People with Hearing Loss: Effects of Reading Instruction on Vocal Verbal Repertoire, Contributions of Behavior Analysis to Reading and Writing Comprehension, 10.1007/978-3-031-40868-7_9, (211-235), (2023).
- Farheen Naz Anis, Cila Umat, Kartini Ahmad, Badrulzaman Abdul Hamid, Arabic phoneme-grapheme correspondence by non-native, deaf children with cochlear implants and normal hearing children, Cochlear Implants International, 10.1080/14670100.2022.2114583, 23, 6, (347-357), (2022).
- Yixun Li, Min Wang, A systematic review of orthographic learning via self-teaching, Educational Psychologist, 10.1080/00461520.2022.2137673, 58, 1, (35-56), (2022).
- Feng Liang, Xin Fu, ShiJian Ding, Lin Li, Use of a Network-Based Method to Identify Latent Genes Associated with Hearing Loss in Children, Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, 10.3389/fcell.2021.783500, 9, (2021).
- Claire McSweeny, Sharon L. Cushing, Jennifer L. Campos, Blake C. Papsin, Karen A. Gordon, Functional Consequences of Poor Binaural Hearing in Development: Evidence From Children With Unilateral Hearing Loss and Children Receiving Bilateral Cochlear Implants, Trends in Hearing, 10.1177/23312165211051215, 25, (2021).
View Options
Sign In Options
ASHA member? If so, log in with your ASHA website credentials for full access.
Member Login