ABSTRACT The reading comprehension levels of students who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) are low compared to those of their hearing peers. One possible reason for this low reading levels is related to the students’ prior knowledge. This study investigated the potential factors that might affected DHH students’ prior knowledge, including their degree of hearing loss, the presence or absence of family members with a hearing loss, and educational stage (elementary–middle school). The study also examined the contribution of prior knowledge in predicting DHH students’ reading comprehension levels, and investigated the differences in the students’ scores based on the type of questions, including text-explicit (TE), text-implicit (TI), and script-implicit (SI) questions. Thirty-one elementary and middle-school students completed a demographic form and assessment, and descriptive statistics and multiple and simple linear regressions were used to answer the research questions. The findings indicated that the independent variables—degree of hearing loss, presence or absence of family members with hearing loss, and educational stage—explained little of the variance in DHH students’ prior knowledge. Further, the results showed that the DHH students’ prior knowledge affected their reading comprehension. Finally, the result demonstrated that the participants were able to answer more of the TI questions correctly than the TE and SI questions. The study concluded that prior knowledge is important in these students’ reading comprehension, and it is also important for teachers and parents of DHH children to use effective ways to increase their students and children’s prior knowledge.

中文翻译：

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了解影响聋哑学生先验知识的因素及其与阅读理解的关系

摘要 与听力正常的同龄人相比，耳聋或听力障碍 (DHH) 学生的阅读理解水平较低。这种低阅读水平的一个可能原因与学生的先验知识有关。本研究调查了可能影响 DHH 学生先验知识的潜在因素，包括他们的听力损失程度、家庭成员是否有听力损失以及教育阶段（小学-中学）。该研究还检验了先验知识对预测 DHH 学生阅读理解水平的贡献，并根据问题类型调查了学生分数的差异，包括文本显式 (TE)、文本隐式 (TI) 和脚本隐式 (SI) 问题。31 名中小学生完成了人口统计表和评估，采用描述性统计和多元简单线性回归来回答研究问题。研究结果表明，自变量——听力损失程度、听力损失家庭成员的存在与否以及教育阶段——几乎不能解释 DHH 学生先验知识的差异。此外，结果表明，DHH 学生的先验知识影响了他们的阅读理解。最后，结果表明，与 TE 和 SI 问题相比，参与者能够正确回答更多的 TI 问题。该研究得出的结论是，先验知识对这些学生的阅读理解很重要，