The impact of universal newborn hearing screening on long-term literacy outcomes: a prospective cohort study

Objective: To determine whether the benefits of universal newborn hearing screening (UNHS) seen at age 8?years persist through the second decade.Design: Prospective cohort study of a population sample of children with permanent childhood hearing impairment (PCHI) followed up for 17?years since birth in periods with (or without) UNHS.Setting: Birth cohort of 100?000 in southern England.Participants: 114 teenagers aged 13-19?years, 76 with PCHI and 38 with normal hearing. All had previously their reading assessed aged 6-10?years.Interventions: Birth in periods with and without UNHS; confirmation of PCHI before and after age 9?months.Main outcome measure: Reading comprehension ability. Regression modelling took account of severity of hearing loss, non-verbal ability, maternal education and main language.Results: Confirmation of PCHI by age 9?months was associated with significantly higher mean z-scores for reading comprehension (adjusted mean difference 1.17, 95% CI 0.36 to 1.97) although birth during periods with UNHS was not (adjusted mean difference 0.15, 95% CI -0.75 to 1.06). The gap between the reading comprehension z-scores of teenagers with early compared with late confirmed PCHI had widened at an adjusted mean rate of 0.06 per year (95% CI -0.02 to 0.13) during the 9.2-year mean interval since the previous assessment.Conclusions: The benefit to reading comprehension of confirmation of PCHI by age 9?months increases during the teenage years. This strengthens the case for UNHS programmes that lead to early confirmation of permanent hearing loss

Speechreading ability is related to phonological awareness and single-word reading in both deaf and hearing children

Purpose. Speechreading (lipreading) is a correlate of reading ability in both deaf and hearing children. We investigated whether the relationship between speechreading and single-word reading is mediated by phonological awareness in deaf and hearing children. Method. In two separate studies, 66 deaf children and 138 hearing children, aged 5–8 years old, were assessed on measures of speechreading, phonological awareness, and single-word reading. We assessed the concurrent relationships between latent variables measuring speechreading, phonological awareness, and single-word reading. Results. In both deaf and hearing children, there was a strong relationship between speechreading and single-word reading, which was fully mediated by phonological awareness. Conclusions. These results are consistent with ideas from previous studies that visual speech information contributes to the development of phonological representations in both deaf and hearing children, which, in turn, support learning to read. Future longitudinal and training studies are required to establish whether these relationships reflect causal effects

Computerised speechreading training for deaf children: A randomised controlled trial

Purpose: We developed and evaluated in a randomised controlled triala computerised speechreading training programme to determine a) whether it is possible to train speechreading in deaf children and b) whether speechreading training results in improvements in phonological and reading skills.Previous studies indicate a relationship between speechreading and reading skill and further suggest this relationshipmay be mediated by improved phonological representations. This is important since many deaf children find learning to read to be very challenging. Method: Sixty-six deaf 5-7 year olds were randomised into speechreading and maths training arms. Each training programme was comprised of10 minutesessionsa day, 4 days a week for 12 weeks. Children were assessed on a battery of language and literacy measures before training, immediately after training, 3 months and 10 months after training. Results: We found no significant benefits for participants who completed the speechreading training, compared to those who completed the maths training, on the speechreading primary outcome measure. However, significantly greater gains were observed in the speechreading training group on one of the secondary measures of speechreading. There was also some evidence of beneficial effects of the speechreading training on phonological representations, however these effects were weaker. No benefits were seen toword reading. Conclusions: Speechreading skill is trainable in deaf children. However, to support early reading, training may need to be longer or embedded in a broader literacy programme. Nevertheless, a training tool that can improve speechreading is likely to be of great interest to professionals working with deaf children

Computerized speechreading training for deaf children: A randomised controlled trial

Purpose: We developed and evaluated in a randomised controlled trial a computerised speechreading training programme to determine a) whether it is possible to train speechreading in deaf children and b) whether speechreading training results in improvements in phonological and reading skills. Previous studies indicate a relationship between speechreading and reading skill and further suggest this relationship may be mediated by improved phonological representations. This is important since many deaf children find learning to read to be very challenging. Method: Sixty-six deaf 5-7 year olds were randomised into speechreading and maths training arms. Each training programme was comprised of 10 minute sessions a day, 4 days a week for 12 weeks. Children were assessed on a battery of language and literacy measures before training, immediately after training, 3 months and 10 months after training. Results: We found no significant benefits for participants who completed the speechreading training, compared to those who completed the maths training, on the speechreading primary outcome measure. However, significantly greater gains were observed in the speechreading training group on one of the secondary measures of speechreading. There was also some evidence of beneficial effects of the speechreading training on phonological representations, however these effects were weaker. No benefits were seen to word reading. Conclusions: Speechreading skill is trainable in deaf children. However, to support early reading, training may need to be longer or embedded in a broader literacy programme. Nevertheless, a training tool that can improve speechreading is likely to be of great interest to professionals working with deaf children

An incomplete understanding: Clarifying some causes and consequences of the 'poor comprehender' profile

The research presented in this thesis had two overarching aims; the first, to supplement our knowledge concerning the aetiological underpinnings of poor comprehension, and the second, to investigate the impact of being a poor comprehender on behavioural and educational outcomes in the school context. A combination of standardised test batteries, novel experimental paradigms, and questionnaire measures were used to obtain data that addressed hypotheses connected to these two aims. Poor comprehenders were found to have working memory deficits, as well as more specific deficits in suppressing irrelevant information from working memory. However, these deficits were largely confined to the verbal domain, giving credence to the theory that their poor performance on working memory and suppression tasks may be driven by underlying language difficulties. Poor comprehenders did show some evidence of broader executive deficits in both the verbal and non-verbal domains, raising the possibility that there might be subgroups of poor comprehenders with distinct aetiological profiles. In terms of behavioural and educational outcomes, poor comprehenders’ deficits were found to impact selectively on these areas, producing a distinct pattern of behavioural and educational impairments. These findings highlighted the need for early identification of, and effective intervention for, poor comprehenders

An incomplete understanding : clarifying some causes and consequences of the 'poor comprehender' profile

The research presented in this thesis had two overarching aims; the first, to supplement our knowledge concerning the aetiological underpinnings of poor comprehension, and the second, to investigate the impact of being a poor comprehender on behavioural and educational outcomes in the school context. A combination of standardised test batteries, novel experimental paradigms, and questionnaire measures were used to obtain data that addressed hypotheses connected to these two aims. Poor comprehenders were found to have working memory deficits, as well as more specific deficits in suppressing irrelevant information from working memory. However, these deficits were largely confined to the verbal domain, giving credence to the theory that their poor performance on working memory and suppression tasks may be driven by underlying language difficulties. Poor comprehenders did show some evidence of broader executive deficits in both the verbal and non-verbal domains, raising the possibility that there might be subgroups of poor comprehenders with distinct aetiological profiles. In terms of behavioural and educational outcomes, poor comprehenders’ deficits were found to impact selectively on these areas, producing a distinct pattern of behavioural and educational impairments. These findings highlighted the need for early identification of, and effective intervention for, poor comprehenders.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Suppressing irrelevant information from working memory: Evidence for domain-specific deficits in poor comprehenders

Previous research has suggested that children with specific reading comprehension deficits (poor comprehenders) show an impaired ability to suppress irrelevant information from working memory, with this deficit detrimentally impacting on their working memory ability, and consequently limiting their reading comprehension performance. However, the extent to which these suppression deficits are specific to the verbal domain has not yet been explored. Experiment 1 examined the memory profiles of poor comprehenders and demonstrated a memory deficit specific to working memory, and the verbal domain within working memory. Experiment 2 compared the same poor comprehenders and controls on both verbal and non-verbal versions of a proactive interference task designed to assess their ability to suppress no-longer-relevant information from working memory. The poor comprehenders showed domain-specific suppression deficits, demonstrating impairments relative to the controls only in the verbal version of the task. Experiment 3 replicated these findings after the response modes of the verbal and non-verbal tasks were equated, confirming the domain specificity of our sample of poor comprehenders’ suppression deficits.<br/

Understanding words, understanding numbers: an exploration of the mathematical profiles of poor comprehenders

Background: Poor comprehenders are children who show significant deficits in their reading comprehension performance, despite average, or above-average word reading ability. To date, there have been no in-depth studies of the mathematical performance profiles of such children.Aims: This study aimed to explore the mathematical profiles of poor comprehenders. Given that language impairment is associated with difficulties with mathematics, and that poor comprehenders tend to have oral language weaknesses, we hypothesized that poor comprehenders would show relative weaknesses in aspects of mathematical performance.Sample: From a sample of 109 children aged 7–8 years, we selected 14 poor comprehenders and 14 controls with age-appropriate reading comprehension ability. The groups were matched on non-verbal ability, multiple measures of reading accuracy, and chronological age.Methods: We compared the performance of the group of poor comprehenders with that of the matched controls on two standardized measures of mathematical ability, one measuring procedural arithmetic prowess and the other tapping higher-level mathematical reasoning.Results: Although there were no group differences in performance on the arithmetic measure, the poor comprehenders showed significantly lower scores than the controls on the mathematical reasoning task. The poor comprehenders exhibited impaired verbal ability relative to controls, with these differences in verbal ability associated with the group differences found on the test of mathematical reasoning.Conclusions: Poor comprehenders' deficits are not limited to the domain of literacy; their underlying profile of impairments also seems to selectively impact on certain components of mathematical ability.<br/