Background and Aim: Reading is the most important human need for learning. In normal-hearing people working memory is a predictor of reading comprehension. In this study the relationship between working memory and reading comprehension skills was studied in hearing-impaired children, and then compared with the normal-hearing group.
Methods: This was a descriptive-analytic study. The working memory and reading comprehension skills of 18 (8 male, 10 female) sever hearing-impaired children in year five of exceptional schools were compared by means of a reading test with 18 hearing children as control group. The subjects in the control group were of the same gender and educational level of the sample group.
Results: The children with hearing loss performed similarly to the normal-hearing children in tasks related to auditory-verbal memory of sounds (reverse), visual-verbal memory of letters, and visual-verbal memory of pictures. However, they showed lower levels of performance in reading comprehension (p<0.001). Moreover, no significant relationship was observed between working memory and reading comprehension skills.
Conclusion: Findings indicated that children with hearing loss have a significant impairment in the reading comprehension skill. Impairment in language knowledge and vocabulary may be the main cause of poor reading comprehension in these children. In hearing-impaired children working memory is not a strong predictor of reading comprehension.