The purpose of this study was to determine whether the reading comprehension of deaf and hearing subjects was affected by the presence of idiomatic language in passages.The Test Of Idioms was constructed to determine the effect of idiomatic language on reading comprehension. It consisted of twelve passages. The four forms differed in the presence or absence of idiomatic language. The Test Of Idioms was evaluated by three judges. Form A and Form D were piloted to standardize the directions for administration and to assess the reliability of the instrument. The reliability for Form A was .93 and .89 for Form D.The subjects in this study were 54 students at the Indiana School for the Deaf who were prelingually, profoundly deaf and had no other handicapping conditions. The hearing subjects consisted of 91 students from the New Castle Community School System who were in grades three or four, had never been retained and had no handicapping conditions. Both deaf and hearing subjects were randomly assigned to take one of the four forms of the Test Of Idioms.The following results were obtained. The deaf subjects did not differ significantly across groups in their ability to comprehend passages with varying levels of idiomatic language. The hearing subjects did not differ significantly across groups in their ability to comprehend passages containing varying levels of idiomatic language. In addition, within groups the deaf and hearing subjects did not differ in their comprehension of passages as a function of the ability or inability to define the idioms contained in the passages.The findings of the study were interpreted to mean that when idioms are embedded in passages where sufficient contextual support is available and extraneous factors are controlled, comprehension is not impaired for deaf or hearing subjects. In addition ability to define an idiom is not an accurate predictor of comprehension ability for reading materials containing idiomatic language.

Access to abstract permanently restricted to Ball State community only / Access to thesis permanently restricted to Ball State community only / Department of Special Education

Thesis (Ed. D.)--CSULA/UCLA, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 117-135).

Thesis (Ph.D. (Augmentative and Alternative Communication))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University. / Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Edmund W. Gordon. Dissertation Committee: Francis A. J. Ianni. Bibliography: leaves 136-142.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (D. Phil.(Communication Pathology))--University of Pretoria, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S. Ed.)--State University of New York College at Brockport, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-64).

Thesis (M.M.E.) Florida State University, 2007. / Advisor: Alice-Ann Darrow, Florida State University, College of Music. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed 8-29-2007). Document formatted into pages; contains 97 pages. Includes biographical sketch. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)—Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1981. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 185-192). / This electronic version was scanned from a copy of the thesis on file at the Speech Communication Group. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Whitaker Health Sciences Fund.