Deaf readers use leftward information to read more efficiently: Evidence from eye tracking.

Little is known about how information to the left of fixation impacts reading and how it may help to integrate what has been read into the context of the sentence. To better understand the role of this leftward information and how it may be beneficial during reading, we compared the sizes of the leftward span for reading-matched deaf signers (n = 32) and hearing adults (n = 40) using a gaze-contingent moving window paradigm with windows of 1, 4, 7, 10, and 13 characters to the left, as well as a no-window condition. All deaf participants were prelingually and profoundly deaf, used American Sign Language (ASL) as a primary means of communication, and were exposed to ASL before age eight. Analysis of reading rates indicated that deaf readers had a leftward span of 10 characters, compared to four characters for hearing readers, and the size of the span was positively related to reading comprehension ability for deaf but not hearing readers. These findings suggest that deaf readers may engage in continued word processing of information obtained to the left of fixation, making reading more efficient, and showing a qualitatively different reading process than hearing readers.

Examining speech-based phonological recoding during reading for adolescent deaf signers.

Much of the debate regarding literacy development in deaf and hard-of-hearing readers surrounds whether there is dependence on phonological decoding of print to speech for such readers, and the literature is mixed. While some reports of deaf children and adults demonstrate the influence of speech-based processing during reading, others find little to no evidence of speech-sound activation. In order to examine the role of speech-based phonological codes when reading, we utilized eye-tracking to examine eye-gaze behaviors employed by deaf children and a control group of hearing primary-school children when encountering target words in sentences. The target words were of three types: correct, homophonic errors, and nonhomophonic errors. We examined eye-gaze fixations when first encountering target words and, if applicable, when rereading those words. The results revealed that deaf and hearing readers differed in their eye-movement behaviors when re-reading the words, but they did not demonstrate differences for first encounters with the words. Hearing readers treated homophonic and nonhomophonic error words differently during their second encounter with the target while deaf readers did not, suggesting that deaf signers did not engage in phonological decoding to the same degree as hearing readers did. Further, deaf signers performed fewer overall regressions to target words than hearing readers, suggesting that they depended less on regressions to resolve errors in the text. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Sign Language Echolalia in Deaf Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Purpose: We present the first study of echolalia in deaf, signing children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We investigate the nature and prevalence of sign echolalia in native-signing children with ASD, the relationship between sign echolalia and receptive language, and potential modality differences between sign and speech. Method: Seventeen deaf children with ASD and 18 typically developing (TD) deaf children were video-recorded in a series of tasks. Data were coded for type of signs produced (spontaneous, elicited, echo, or nonecho repetition). Echoes were coded as pure or partial, and timing and reduplication of echoes were coded. Results: Seven of the 17 deaf children with ASD produced signed echoes, but none of the TD deaf children did. The echoic children had significantly lower receptive language scores than did both the nonechoic children with ASD and the TD children. Modality differences also were found in terms of the directionality, timing, and reduplication of echoes. Conclusions: Deaf children with ASD sometimes echo signs, just as hearing children with ASD sometimes echo words, and TD deaf children and those with ASD do so at similar stages of linguistic development, when comprehension is relatively low. The sign language modality might provide a powerful new framework for analyzing the purpose and function of echolalia in deaf children with ASD.