Untitled

Abstract

The primary purpose of this study was to explore the reading comprehension skills and phonetic and non-phonetic reading skills in the English language in both, children with normal hearing and children with cochlear implantation. Research in this area is limited with respect to the Indian context and hence a study dealing with these aspects has the potential to broaden our understanding of benefits of cochlear implantation as it helps with academics. The study involved a total of 74 participants across three grades, 5 th , 6 th and 7 th of which 57 were CWNH and 17 were CWCI. All were assessed based on scores attained on 4 assessment tasks, phonetic reading skills, non-phonetic reading skills, short reading passage comprehension and long reading passage comprehension. On statistical analysis, there was a significant difference between scores obtained on phonetic reading, short reading passage comprehension and long reading passage comprehension between 5 th and 6 th as well as 6 th and 7 th graders of CWNH. However, no significant difference was recorded between all three standards (5 th , 6 th and 7 th ) on all 4 assessment tasks for CWCI group. When grade level comparisons were made between CWNH and CWCI, there was no statistically significant difference of scores on any of the 4 tasks between the two groups at any grade level except that 6 th graders of CWNH group performed better in the short reading passage comprehension task as compared to 6 th graders of CWCI.