City Research Online

Abstract

Literacy difficulties are more widespread among deaf* children than hearing children but reasons for their problems differ. Hearing children are likely to be described as dyslexic and once diagnosed, may benefit from specialist support. However, for deaf children, their hearing difficulties are seen as primary. In this Briefing Paper, we report findings from the first stage of our research, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, which has focused exclusively on oral deaf children. In the next phase, we will investigate deaf children who use sign language to communicate.

Our analysis identified half of our group of oral deaf children as having reading difficulties. We were able to identify dyslexia sensitive measures and deaf children with dyslexic profiles; however, not all were amongst the poorest readers. Our findings highlight the scale of reading difficulty in oral deaf children and point to an urgent need for specialist intervention to be implemented along the lines currently offered to hearing children with dyslexia.

Publication Type:	Report
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics
Departments:	School of Health & Psychological Sciences > Language & Communication Science

Export

Downloads