الفهرس 
1-Acknowledgment.
Ch 1 : PA: Nature & Development.Only 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Children who are hearing impaired especially deaf and hard of hearing are at risk for serious reading deficiencies (Carney and Moeller, 1998). Indeed, the median reading level for high school graduates with hearing loss falls between fourth and fifth grades (Traxler, 2000). Recent reports suggest that a newer generation of children who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) may have a better longterm prognosis. For many of these children, this may be related to improved speech perception skills resulting from universal newborn screening and advances in technology, such as cochlear implants (Spencer and Oleson, 2008).
Research has established key skills, such as phonological awareness, knowledge of the alphabetic principle (e.g., that letters represent phonemes, which can be blended to form words), and vocabulary as integral to successful literacy development among children with typical hearing (Ehri et al., 2001). Recent research for elementary-age school children who are DHH suggests that many of these same skills are important for children with hearing loss who have at least some access to spoken language (e.g., through hearing aids or cochlear implants) (Spencer and Oleson, 2008). However, there is little research on these foundational skills for younger children who are DHH. The purpose of this study is to learn more about the early development of literacy skills by examining changes over preschool & school young children with hearing loss.
Aim of the work :
The aim of this work is addressed towards answering these questions:
Firstly, whether Arabic children with hearing loss can be considered to be phonologically aware or not.
What are the levels of phonological awareness in children with hearing loss compared with children with normal hearing?
How does phonological awareness develop in Arabic hearing impaired children?
Whether performance on tasks that measure phonological awareness is associated with reading or not.
Materials and Methods:
Sample included 90 children ranging in their age from 5 to 10 years and classified into two groups of children (A) 60 hearing impaired children first, second, third or fourth grader, (B) 30 normal hearing children in same grades and schools.
Impaired hearing children who participated in the study (group A, case group) consisted of 2 subgroups (a) the children who were in nursery school (N=30, age range: 5-8) and the other subgroup (b) consisted of children who were in the first, second, third or fourth grade of primary school (N=30, age range: 7-10;9).
Normal hearing children who participated in study (group B, control group) consisted of 2 subgroups (a) the children who were in nursery school (N=15, age range: 5-6y7m) and the other subgroup (b) consisted of children who were in the first, second, third or fourth grade of primary school (N=15, age range: 7-10).
Data of All hearing impaired children (group A) were collected at two time points 12 weeks apart as they tested initially (T1) by special battery tasks: phonological awareness and reading ability and then retested again after 12 weeks (T2) being classified into two subgroups (a= preschool) & (b= school) each of them constituted from 30 children. Both subgroups had been enrolled in language enhancement program (Bassiony et al., 2001), but half of children in each subgroups (a= preschool) & (b= school) have been trained also to enhance their phonological awareness skills in the form of 3 sessions- 40 minutes each - individually/week for 12 weeks (i.e. 36 sessions). And the other half did not receive any phonological awareness intervention program.
Results:
The present study revealed that there is a significant difference between cases & control subjects understudy in both PA skills & reading ability measures.
Post PA training both preschool & school HI groups increased in word recognition scores as reading ability measure
The present study demonstrated that HI children benefited from the applied intervention program. It is recommended that such approach be adopted as a one of management lines for remediating Arabic HI children suffering from reading disabilities.
In summary, the goal of the current study was to examine selected skills that are foundational for early literacy development among children with typical hearing and may have implications for a new generation of children who are DHH and have improved access to spoken language.