Reading Comprehension of Flemish Deaf Children in Belgium: Sources of Variability in Reading Comprehension after Cochlear Implantation

This paper reports the results of two studies of reading comprehension of Flemish children in Belgium. In the northern part of Belgium (Flanders), Dutch is the official language. The Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Flanders are called Flemish. Dutch is also the national language of the Netherlands. Despite both groups using Dutch, cultural differences between the groups are reflected in healthcare and education. Study 1 investigated the effect of these differences on the reading comprehension of deaf children. Reading levels of Flemish deaf children with cochlear implants (CI) (n = 30) or hearing aids (HA) (n = 44) were compared with reference data of Dutch deaf children with CI (n = 50) and HA (n = 500), and with a hearing norm group. Study 2 investigated sources of variability by examining the underlying processes of reading comprehension of good and poor Flemish deaf readers from the CI group in Study 1. Results of Study 1 showed significantly better reading levels for the two Flemish groups. These differences may reflect Belgian policy aiming at early implantation and the use of spoken language communication. The second study contrasted good and poor readers' working memory capacity scores, including verbal and non-verbal working memory scores, morphosyntactic ability, and phonological encoding in order to explore which underlying processes contributed to reading performance in the Flemish CI users. Results showed a tendency toward better morphosyntactic abilities and better working memory skills in the good readers. Three factors appear to explain the better reading of Flemish children with CIs: amount of spoken language input in communication, access to spoken language through a cochlear implant, and age at implantation.