Comparison of Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension Skills between The Three Groups of Fourth Grade Students Who Received Hearing Aid, Cochlear Implant and Normal in Mashhad

Students with hearing loss experience some problems in reading comprehension skill as a component of language. This study aimed to examine the association between lexical knowledge and reading comprehension skill in fourth grade students with hearing loss and normal hearing.

This study was conducted on 30 fourth grade students in 3 groups including students with hearing aid, students with cochlear implant, and students with normal hearing. The lexical and reading comprehension skills were assessed by the persian version of test of language development (TOLD) and Nama Test. The data were analyzed by using SPSS software version 22, and  one-way ANOVA, Tukey's post hoc, and Pearson's correlation coefficient statistical tests. The significance level considered a  p

Mean scores of vocabulary comprehension and reading comprehension tasks were higher in normal hearing students than students with cochlear implants, but the difference was not statistically siginicant. There was a positive significant correlation between lexical knowledge and reading comprehension skills in the group of students with hearing aids.

Hearing loss has a negative impact on the development of lexical knowledgeand reading comprehension skills. It seems that increasing the size of the vocabulary can improve reading comprehension skill in this group of children.