Hayes, H., Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (July, 2008). Predictors of spelling performance in deaf children with cochlear implants. Poster to be presented at the meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Asheville, NC.
We examined predictors of spelling skill in deaf children with cochlear implants and compared their performance to that of hearing children matched on age.
44 orally educated children with cochlear implants (mean age 8.8 years) and 44 hearing children (8.6 years) spelled 80 words from pictures. Multilevel logistic regressions predicted spelling accuracy on a by-trial basis from characteristics of the child and of the attempted word.
Age at implantation did not independently contribute to spelling accuracy. Deaf children with cochlear implants were poorer spellers (51% correct) than hearing age-mates (64%), but similar characteristics were associated with spelling success for both hearing and deaf children: age, reading skill, whether the child pronounced the target word correctly, and lexical properties such as length and frequency.
Many studies of children with cochlear implants have found that age at implantation is an important predictor of language and reading success. For spelling, it appears to play no role beyond its contribution to reading skill. Instead, spelling success is best modeled with the same factors that are important for spelling performance in hearing children.
Last change 2008-02-15 18:22:46-06:00