Deaf foundation speaks out loudly

By a spokesperson for The National Foundation for the Deaf Inc

Most educators believe that literacy is affected by not hearing properly. An abundance of literature and experience confirms that children who can’t hear properly need special help with language and reading, but Minister Tolley denies a causal link if the hearing impairment is due to auditory processing disorder (APD), saying such a relationship has not been demonstrated.

Louise Carroll, CEO of The National Foundation for the Deaf Inc, agrees that the Minister is technically correct. “It’s difficult to demonstrate the exact causal link in the same way that the link between smoking and cancer is elusive. But common sense tells us that deafness adversely affects language development and hence literacy. And as with smoking and cancer there is a wealth of associative evidence showing that hearing impairment affects literacy.”

US experts Donna Geffner and Ronald Goldman state: “For decades, research has shown that auditory skills play a significant role in the development of speech and language and in the acquisition of reading, writing, and spelling skills (Morency & Wepman, 1973; Barr 1972). 

A child’s ability to learn depends on his or her ability to receive, extract, and attribute meaning to what is heard through the auditory channel. As early as 1965 Flower said that auditory processes play a major role in the mastery of learning to read.  ...  If a child cannot perceive speech sounds (phonemes) clearly, remember their sequence, and organise them into linguistic symbols (letters), then the child is likely to have difficulties in learning to read and communicate.”

Professor Suzanne Purdy and colleagues at the University of Auckland examined the comorbidity of APD, reading disorder and language impairment. Of 49 Auckland children with auditory processing disorder in one study, 94 per cent also had reading disorder and/or language impairment.

Awareness of the sound structure of speech (phonological awareness) clearly depends on good hearing and auditory discrimination abilities. Australian researchers Castle and Coltheart (2004) say “That there is a relationship between performance on phonological awareness tasks and reading ability is undisputed. A large amount of evidence has now been accumulated to show that the more knowledge children have about the constituent sounds of words, the better they tend to be at reading.”

The link between auditory disorders and reading holds true for children with dyslexia too. Ramus (2003) reports that data from a number of studies show that 39 per cent of dyslexics have an observed auditory deficit and that dyslexics that have the worst auditory impairments also have severely impaired phonology and reading.

Dr Bill Keith, audiologist at SoundSkills, a specialist APD clinic, says that the scores of children referred to SoundSkills because they have passed regular hearing tests yet cannot hear the teacher properly because of APD usually have literacy problems in one form or other. Because they don’t hear normally their phonological awareness and language skills are often deficient, with consequent effects on spelling and reading. “Sometimes a parent has the same problem as their child and we see the struggle such parents also have to both absorb verbal information and to express themselves.” 

Barr, DF (1972).  Auditory Perceptual Disorders.  Springfield, IL:  Charles C Thomas.
Castles A and Coltheart M, Is there a causal link from phonological awareness to success in learning to read? Cognition 91 (2004) 77-111
Flower, RM (1965). Auditory and reading disorders.  In R Flower & L Lawson (Eds.), Reading Disorders:  A multidisciplinary symposium (pp. 81-102).  Philadelphia: RA Davis.
Morency, A & Wepman, JM (1973).  Early perceptual ability and later school acheivement.  The Elementary School Journal. 73, 323-327.
Ramus F, 2003 Developmental dyslexia: specific phonological deficit or general sensorimotor dysfunction? Current Opinion in Neurobiology 13:1-7
Sharma M, Purdy SC, Kelly AS  Comorbidity of auditory processing, language, and reading disorders. J. Speech Lang. Hear. Res. 2009 Jun; vol. 52(3) pp. 706-22