The Contribution of Verbal Working Memory to Deaf Children’s Oral and Written Production

This study investigated the contribution of verbal working memory to the oral and written story production of deaf children. Participants were 29 severely to profoundly deaf children aged 8–13 years and 29 hearing controls, matched for grade level. The children narrated a picture story orally and in writing and performed a reading comprehension test, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition forward digit span task, and a reading span task. Oral and written stories were analyzed at the microstructural (i.e., clause) and macrostructural (discourse) levels. Hearing children’s stories scored higher than deaf children’s at both levels. Verbal working memory skills contributed to deaf children’s oral and written production over and above age and reading comprehension skills. Verbal rehearsal skills (forward digit span) contributed significantly to deaf children’s ability to organize oral and written stories at the microstructural level; they also accounted for unique variance at the macrostructural level in writing. Written story production appeared to involve greater verbal working memory resources than oral story production.