An examination of the early literacy skills of five- to six-year-old children who are deaf and hard of hearing

ABSTRACT Children’s early literacy skills (ELS) are closely related to literacy learning and reading comprehension performance. Children who cannot acquire early literacy skills face significant difficulties in doing so in the following years. Although it is widely known that children who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) perform less well in early literacy skills than their typically developing peers, there is not enough information about the magnitude of the performance differences and in which skills these occur in Turkish-speaking children who are DHH. In this study, the early literacy skills (language, vocabulary, phonological awareness and letter knowledge) of 30 Turkish-speaking DHH children and 30 with typical development (TD) attending kindergarten were compared. The Coloured Progressive Matrices Test, as well as the Turkish early language development and Turkish expressive and receptive language tests, in addition to the early literacy one, were used to determine the children’s skill levels. The results of the analysis showed that the DHH children performed at significantly lower levels in language, vocabulary and phonological awareness skills than their peers with TD, while there was no major difference between the two groups in letter knowledge. The outcomes also revealed that there were a higher number of significant relationships among the early literacy skills of the DHH children than those with TD. The findings of are further discussed in regard to their contribution to current research and practice relating to the early literacy skills of Turkish-speaking children who are DHH.