Inferencing skills of adolescent readers who are hearing impaired

Two experiments examined the inferencing abilities of a group of adolescents who were hearing impaired compared with a group of hearing children matched approximately for chronological age. The first experiment used on-line methods and suggests that pupils who are hearing impaired are less efficient at drawing inferences. When they do so correctly, they draw inferences automatically as the text is encountered in a similar manner to the hearing pupils. In the second experiment, the same material was presented to the hearing-impaired adolescents in British Sign Language. However, from the results obtained, it is not possible to comment on how the information is processed when it is presented manually, and suggestions are made on ways this might be further investigated. It is suggested that the difficulties encountered by the students who are hearing impaired, when reading implicit material, reflect the relative impoverishment of their experiential backgrounds.