Deaf adults and comprehension of expository texts

Abstract

The study presents a comparison between deaf participants´ (14-65 years of age) comprehension of expository texts. Each participant was exposed to 12 texts with regard to the following four differ-ent conditions: 1. Silent reading of an authentic text. 2. Viewing of a videotaped signed authentic text 3. Silent reading of an easy-to-read text 4. Viewing of a videotaped signed easy-to-read- text. The conditions were counterbalanced in order to control order and passage effects. The good deaf readers had a higher mean score than the poor deaf readers on all text versions. There was a significant difference in mean scores between good deaf and poor deaf readers on the easy-to-read text version. How then can the results be explained? All of the easy-to-read texts were much shorter than the authentic texts. However, since there has to be the identical content as in the authentic texts, there was much implicit information in the easy-to-read texts. Consequently, the reader needs prior knowledge and reading experience to fill in the missing information in the text. A conclusion is that the easy-to-read texts did not serve their purpose then since the process of simplification itself has given rise to the removal of structures that are relevant to facilitate understanding.