E.S. Opheij (Elsa)

The project 'Different routes to literacy in deaf and hard-of-hearing children: an eye-tracking study' focuses on the reading process and reading behaviour exhibited by DHH children. The aim of the project is to gain a deeper understanding of how these children acquire and develop reading skills, enabling reading education to be even more tailored to their individual educational needs.

Hearing children usually learn to read by first 'cracking the alphabetic code': they learn which letters of the alphabet correspond to which sounds. This process of learning to read can be quite challenging for deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children, who generally show a reading deficit. However, this group of children is diverse and much variation in reading skills can be found between children with a hearing impairment. With her background in linguistics, Elsa investigates which constructs drive these differences in reading development. Moreover, she examines the different routes to literacy exhibited by DHH children, as well as their reading behaviour.