Date of Award

2018

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Department

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Sub-Department

The Norman J. Arnold School of Public Health

First Advisor

Krystal Werfel

Abstract

Purpose: The two-fold purpose of this study was to determine if a) students with reading impairments fail hearing screenings at higher rates than students without reading impairments and b) if the pattern of simple view of reading classification differs across hearing screening results.

Method: This project included 19 students with reading impairments and 17 students with typically reading skills in grades 2 through 11. Each participant completed a hearing screening and a complete battery of language and literacy tests to determine their hearing screen status and simple view classification.

Results: Results of a chi square test comparing reading status and hearing screen status were not statistically significant (p = 0.74), but indicated a trend in the predicted direction, with 52.6% of impaired readers and 23.5% of normal readers failing their hearing screening. Results of a chi square test comparing simple view classification and hearing screen status indicated a significant relationship (p = .043). Individuals who failed their hearing screening were most likely to present in the mixed reading disability group.

Conclusions: Students who fail a hearing screening at 15 dB HL are not likely to be good readers and are significantly more likely to have a mixed reading disability than those who did not fail. More information is needed to conclude if students with reading impairment are significantly more likely to fail a hearing screening than those without.

Rights

© 2018, Laura Peek

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