The Effect of Phonology and Semantics on Reading and Memorizing Written Sentences in Chinese Prelinguistic Deaf People

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the processing differences of phonological interference (tongue twisters) and semantic interference (subject–object interchange/double-object interchange) between prelingual deaf Chinese speakers and normal-hearing speakers during sentence reading and memory, to test the deficit phonemic awareness hypothesis and the deficit structure awareness hypothesis of deaf reading, and to provide theoretical basis for deaf education strategies. Method: Twenty-two prelingually deaf college students (hearing loss ≥ 85 dB) and 41 normal-hearing college students (including 22 ability-matched groups) were recruited. Thirty-two sets of experimental sentences (normal correct sentences, normal incorrect sentences, tongue-twister correct sentences, tongue-twister incorrect sentences) were used. We used a two-phase experimental task. In the first (reading) phase, participants read each sentence and performed a sentence logic judgment task. In the second (memory) phase, after an arithmetic interference task, participants completed a fill-in-the-blank recall task. Accuracy and response time were recorded and analyzed using generalized linear mixed models and linear mixed models. Results: In the reading phase, the hearing group showed sensitivity to phonological interference, with significantly longer reaction times for tongue-twister sentences ( p < .001). The deaf group showed numerically longer reaction times for incorrect sentences, but the difference only approached a trend ( p = .054). In the memory phase, phonological similarity increased recall accuracy for both groups ( p = .001). Semantic interference significantly reduced memory accuracy in the hearing group ( p = .035) and prolonged response times in both groups ( p < .001). Overall, the hearing group outperformed the deaf group on all measures ( p ≤ .006). Conclusions: Chinese prelingually deaf people rely on semantic reorganization strategies (supporting the deficit structure awareness hypothesis), and their semantic integration occurs after vocabulary extraction, which is different from the synchronous processing mechanism of the hearing population. Also, phonological and semantic processing are independent of each other. Educational practices need to prioritize semantic logic training (e.g., visualization tools), reduce phonological dependence, and develop word order–based memory strategies to improve reading performance. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.33283011