Professor Margaret Harris

Purpose. Speechreading (lipreading) is a correlate of reading ability in both deaf and hearing children. We investigated whether the relationship between speechreading and single-word reading is mediated by phonological awareness in deaf and hearing children.

Method. In two separate studies, 66 deaf children and 138 hearing children, aged 5–8 years old, were assessed on measures of speechreading, phonological awareness, and single-word reading. We assessed the concurrent relationships between latent variables measuring speechreading, phonological awareness, and single-word reading.

Results. In both deaf and hearing children, there was a strong relationship between speechreading and single-word reading, which was fully mediated by phonological awareness.

Conclusions. These results are consistent with ideas from previous studies that visual speech information contributes to the development of phonological representations in both deaf and hearing children, which, in turn, support learning to read. Future longitudinal and training studies are required to establish whether these relationships reflect causal effects.

There is evidence showing that both maturational and environmental factors can impact on later language development. On the one hand, preterm birth has been found to increase the risk of deficits in the preschool and school years. Preterm children show poorer auditory discrimination, reading difficulties, poor vocabulary, less complex expressive language and lower receptive understanding than their matched controls. On the other hand, socioeconomic status indicators (i.e. income, education, occupation) have been found to be strongly related to linguistic abilities during the preschool and school years. However, there is very little information about how these factors result in lower linguistic abilities. The present study addresses this issue. To do so, we investigated early phonological development in full and preterm infants from families classed as high or low SES. 76 infants were followed longitudinally at 7.5, 9, 10.5 and 12 months of age. At each test point, three studies explored infants’ phonetic, prosodic and phonotactic development, respectively. Results showed no significant differences between the phonetic or the phonotactic development of the preterm and the full-term infants. However, a time-lag between preterm and full-term developmental timing for prosody was found. Socioeconomic status did not have a significant effect on prosodic development. Nonetheless, phonetic and phonotactic development were affected by SES, infants from lower SES showed phonetic discrimination of non-native contrast and a preference for high-frequency sequences later than their more advantaged peers. Overall these results suggest that different constraints apply to the acquisition of different phonological subcomponents.

Purpose: We developed and evaluated in a randomised controlled trial a computerised speechreading training programme to determine a) whether it is possible to train speechreading in deaf children and b) whether speechreading training results in improvements in phonological and reading skills. Previous studies indicate a relationship between speechreading and reading skill and further suggest this relationship may be mediated by improved phonological representations. This is important since many deaf children find learning to read to be very challenging. Method: Sixty-six deaf 5-7 year olds were randomised into speechreading and maths training arms.  Each training programme was comprised of 10 minute sessions a day, 4 days a week for 12 weeks. Children were assessed on a battery of language and literacy measures before training, immediately after training, 3 months and 10 months after training. Results: We found no significant benefits for participants who completed the speechreading training, compared to those who completed the maths training, on the speechreading primary outcome measure. However, significantly greater gains were observed in the speechreading training group on one of the secondary measures of speechreading.  There was also some evidence of beneficial effects of the speechreading training on phonological representations, however these effects were weaker. No benefits were seen to word reading. Conclusions: Speechreading skill is trainable in deaf children. However, to support early reading, training may need to be longer or embedded in a broader literacy programme. Nevertheless, a training tool that can improve speechreading is likely to be of great interest to professionals working with deaf children. 

Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) could play a crucial role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions around the world. Much research has examined the practical barriers to large-scale BEV uptake, but very little has examined the psychological barriers. The current study addresses this gap in the literature by investigating the effects of stereotype threat on BEV drivers. This psychological predicament occurs when an individual imagines or experiences being judged in terms of negative stereotypes about their social group. Qualitative thematic analysis of interview data revealed three distinct stereotypes that the BEV drivers imagined or reported other people to hold: eccentric, low-status environmentalists; hypocritical, high status environmentalists; and geeky technophiles. With regard to the first and second stereotypes, drivers tended to use individualist defence strategies by downplaying their proenvironmental attitudes and dissociating themselves from the undesirable environmentalist groups. With regard to the third stereotype, they tended to use more constructive, group-level defence strategies by perceiving their BEV driver ingroup as superior on the innovative technology adopter dimension compared to their non-BEV driver outgroup. Suggestions are made for countering the psychological barrier of stereotype threat, such as promoting images of BEV drivers as future-shaping market leaders and treating them as members of an influential and desirable consumer group.

Method: Forty-two deaf children, aged 5 -7 years with a mean unaided loss of 102 DB, were assessed on language, reading and phonological skills. Their performance was compared to that of a similar group of 32 deaf children assessed 10 years earlier, and also a group of 40 hearing children of similar single word reading ability. 
 

Results: English vocabulary was significantly higher in the new cohort, although it was still below chronological age. Phonological awareness and reading ability had not significantly changed over time. In both cohorts English vocabulary predicted reading but phonological awareness was only a significant predictor for the new cohort.
 

Conclusions: The current results show that vocabulary knowledge of children with severe-profound hearing loss has improved over time but there has not been a commensurate improvement in phonological skills or reading. They suggest that children with severe-profound hearing loss will require continued support to develop robust phonological coding skills to underpin reading.

To become successful readers, hearing children require competence in both decoding—the ability to read individual words, underpinned by phonological skills and letter–sound knowledge—and linguistic comprehension—the ability to understand what they read—underpinned by language skills, including vocabulary knowledge. Children who are born with a severe–profound hearing loss, or who acquire such a loss in the first months of life, need to develop the same core skills in decoding and linguistic comprehension although they may develop these skills in a somewhat different manner from hearing peers. This review considers the impact on literacy of universal newborn hearing screening and of improvements in the technologies that give access to sound, including the provision of cochlear implants. The review shows that these new technologies have brought some notable improvements, especially in the early years at school, but that many children with severe–profound hearing loss still find reading a challenge and can benefit from continued support for literacy throughout their years at school.

The UK government has made substantial investments in electric transport as a potential means of reducing CO2 emissions (DoECC, 2012). This paper investigates responses to recharging plug-in battery electric vehicles from the perspective of electric vehicle (EV) drivers. Drivers in the UK Ultra Low Carbon Vehicle trial (n = 135, 29% female, M = 47 years) completed questionnaires and were interviewed to assess their attitudes and experiences before they obtained their EV and after driving the EV for 3 months. The results demonstrated that drivers were positive about recharging – preferring it to ‘refuelling’ – and they became more relaxed over time about the frequency of recharging. Drivers managed without using a public charging infrastructure although such an infrastructure may be desirable to promote EV use. Finally, there was an interesting difference in drivers’ awareness of the environmental impact of driving and recharging an EV before and after the trial in relation to CO2 emissions and the energy cycle. The results are discussed in relation to the implications for developing the future EV market.

A total of 86 deaf children aged between 12 and 16 years were recruited from schools for the deaf, specialist units attached to a school, and mainstream schools. Approximately one-third used hearing aids, one-third had received a cochlear implant before 42 months, and one-third had been implanted later. The 3 subgroups were matched for age and nonverbal IQ, and all had an unaided hearing loss of at least 85 dB. Assessments revealed mean reading ages that were several years below chronological age for all 3 groups. However, participants in the hearing aid group performed best. Reading levels were not predicted by age of diagnosis or degree of hearing loss, but there was a relationship between reading level and presence of phonetic errors in spelling. There were also differences in educational setting, with the great majority of children in the hearing aid group in a school for the deaf and relatively more of the children with cochlear implants being educated in a unit or mainstream setting

The development of reading ability in a group of deaf children was followed over a 3-year period. A total of 29 deaf children (7-8 years of age at the first assessment) participated in the study, and every 12 months they were given a battery of literacy, cognitive, and language tasks. Earlier vocabulary and speechreading skills predicted longitudinal growth in reading achievement. The relations between reading and the predictor variables showed developmental change. Earlier reading ability was related to later phonological awareness skills, suggesting that deaf children might develop their phonological awareness through reading. Deaf children who had the most age-appropriate reading skills tended to have less severe hearing losses and earlier diagnoses and also preferred to communicate through speech. The theoretical implications of the role for speechreading, vocabulary and phonological awareness in deaf children" s literacy are discussed.