Investigating the neural dynamics of single-word reading in deaf readers

San Diego State University, San Diego CA

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Abstract

? DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Reading is a fundamentally important skill in our society. For the literate adult, reading written words generally comes with ease. However, not all people develop this ability, and have life long troubles reading. This is especially true for the deaf population. Despite considerable efforts to identify and ameliorate the cause(s) of reading difficulties in deaf readers over the past 50+ years, the average reading level in deaf people continues to remain between the third and fourth grade. Deaf people must learn to read a language that they cannot hear, and they do so with variable success. The factors that lead to skilled reading for deaf individuals are currently under debate and not well understood. The major aim of this project is to examine the neural dynamics of word reading in skilled and less skilled deaf readers. In order to characterize the nature of orthographic and phonological codes for skilled and less-skilled deaf readers, we will examine the specificity of the neuroanatomical substrates and the time-course of visual word recognition. We propose to combine fMRI and EEG (in separate experiments) to study the neural dynamics in deaf readers to a) determine how impoverished phonological representations in deaf readers impact the neural specificity of reading, b) characterize the nature of orthographic and phonological neural representations in deaf readers, and c) identify the electrophysiological markers of orthographic and phonological components in visual word recognition and if/how they differ in skilled vs. less skilled deaf readers. The techniques proposed in this project provide an innovative and powerful way to examine the neural dynamics of single word reading in skilled and less skilled deaf readers. The relevance of this work for public health lies in its direct focus on the study of reading in deaf adults who have a known history of reading difficulties. By identifying factors that do (and do not) affect reading processes, this project can inform educational models of literacy instruction and reading remediation for deaf individuals. As reading skill is critical for social and economic success, the results of the project have the potential to benefit society as a whole by helping to improve literacy outcomes for deaf people.