Semantic and syntactic reading comprehension strategies used by deaf children with early and late cochlear implantation.
Deaf children implanted before age two read with normal grammar cues; later implants leave them guessing from word meaning alone.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Gallego et al. (2016) watched deaf readers solve short stories. They asked: who uses grammar cues and who leans only on word meaning?
Kids were split by implant age: before 24 months (early-CI) or after (late-CI). Each child read tiny paragraphs while the team tracked eye moves and answers.
What they found
Early-CI readers acted like hearing classmates. They used word order and verb endings to figure out who did what.
Late-CI readers grabbed at key nouns and guessed. Their choices jumped around; grammar clues rarely guided them.
How this fits with other research
Boons et al. (2013) first said early-CI kids still mess up grammar. Carlos shows the gap closes when you test reading, not talking. The kids can follow syntax on the page even if their spoken sentences wobble.
Bouck et al. (2016) found the same macro-good, micro-shaky split in spoken stories. Carlos mirrors it in silent reading, proving the pattern holds across both talking and reading tasks.
Chiviacowsky et al. (2013) showed early Cued Speech boosts literacy. Carlos adds that early auditory input through implants gives a similar lift, backing the wider rule: early sensory language access matters for later print skills.
Why it matters
If you serve deaf clients, check implant timing. Early-CI learners can handle grammar-heavy texts; just give them the same challenges as hearing peers. Late-CI learners need you to pre-teach sentence frames and highlight morphological endings before they read. Pair late-CI students with guided syntax drills and graphic organizers that make word roles visible.
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Add a quick syntax-preview to your reading session: underline -ed, -s, and word order then ask who did what.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Deaf students have traditionally exhibited reading comprehension difficulties. In recent years, these comprehension problems have been partially offset through cochlear implantation (CI), and the subsequent improvement in spoken language skills. However, the use of cochlear implants has not managed to fully bridge the gap in language and reading between normally hearing (NH) and deaf children, as its efficacy depends on variables such as the age at implant. This study compared the reading comprehension of sentences in 19 children who received a cochlear implant before 24 months of age (early-CI) and 19 who received it after 24 months (late-CI) with a control group of 19 NH children. The task involved completing sentences in which the last word had been omitted. To complete each sentence children had to choose a word from among several alternatives that included one syntactic and two semantic foils in addition to the target word. The results showed that deaf children with late-CI performed this task significantly worse than NH children, while those with early-CI exhibited no significant differences with NH children, except under more demanding processing conditions (long sentences with infrequent target words). Further, the error analysis revealed a preference of deaf students with early-CI for selecting the syntactic foil over a semantic one, which suggests that they draw upon syntactic cues during sentence processing in the same way as NH children do. In contrast, deaf children with late-CI do not appear to use a syntactic strategy, but neither a semantic strategy based on the use of key words, as the literature suggests. Rather, the numerous errors of both kinds that the late-CI group made seem to indicate an inconsistent and erratic response when faced with a lack of comprehension. These findings are discussed in relation to differences in receptive vocabulary and short-term memory and their implications for sentence reading comprehension.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2016 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2015.11.020