Do deaf children use phonological syllables as reading units?

This study aimed at examining whether deaf children process written words on the basis of phonological units. In French, the syllable is a phonologically and orthographically well-defined unit. French deaf children and hearing children matched on word recognition level were asked to copy written words and pseudo-words. The number of glances at the item, copying duration, and the locus of the first segmentation (i.e., after the first glance) within the item were measured. The main question was whether the segments copied by the deaf children corresponded to syllables as defined by phonological and orthographic rules.The results showed that deaf children, like hearing children, used syllables as copying units when the syllable boundaries were marked both by orthographic and phonological criteria. However, in a condition in which orthographic and phonological criteria were differentiated, the deaf children did not perform phonological segmentations while the hearing children did. We discuss two explanatory hypotheses. First, items in this condition were difficult to decode for deaf children; second, orthographic units were probably easier to process for deaf children than phonological units because of a lack of automaticity in their phonological conversion processes for pseudo-words. Finally, incidental observations during the experimental task raised the question of the use of fingerspelled units.