Description:
The study presents a comparison between deaf participants´ (14-65 years of age) comprehensionof expository texts. Each participant was exposed to 12 texts with regard to the following four differentconditions: 1. Silent reading of an authentic text. 2. Viewing of a videotaped signed authentic text 3.Silent reading of an easy-to-read text 4. Viewing of a videotaped signed easy-to-read- text. The conditionswere counterbalanced in order to control order and passage effects. The good deaf readers had ahigher mean score than the poor deaf readers on all text versions. There was a significant difference inmean scores between good deaf and poor deaf readers on the easy-to-read text version. How then can theresults be explained? All of the easy-to-read texts were much shorter than the authentic texts. However,since there has to be the identical content as in the authentic texts, there was much implicit information inthe easy-to-read texts. Consequently, the reader needs prior knowledge and reading experience to fill inthe missing information in the text. A conclusion is that the easy-to-read texts did not serve their purposethen since the process of simplification itself has given rise to the removal of structures that are relevantto facilitate understanding.