Reading Profile in Deaf Adults

We examined the reading profile of deaf subjects, focusing on psycholinguistic variables and considering the impact of the global factor, to determine whether phonological, lexical, and semantic effects would differ in some way for these individuals in comparison to hearing individuals in reading. Thirteen deaf young adults proficient in both oral lipreading and sign language were compared to a group of hearing subjects matched for gender, age, and education. Deaf participants had longer vocal reaction times in reading aloud single words with respect to hearing subjects. However, they showed a similar reading profile to controls, being affected by psycholinguistic variables in a very similar way. Deaf individuals did not show a multiplicative effect as a function of word difficulty in their reading slowness but only a constant delay. Overall, the deficit shown by deaf participants was relatively limited and not associated with specific cognitive processes. This finding is in keeping with the idea that at least some individuals with a severe hearing impairment may reach reasonably high levels of word reading.