To cite this article: Gómez-Merino, N., Fajardo, I., & Ferrer, A. (2021). Did the three little pigs frighten the wolf? How deaf readers use lexical and syntactic cues to comprehend sentences. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 112, 103908. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ridd.2021.103908

Did the three little pigs scare the wolf? When grammar beats “world knowledge”

Study context

Sometimes what a sentence literally says conflicts with what we expect from world knowledge. In those cases, grammar (e.g., “by” in passives) is essential to get the right meaning. For deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students, evidence has been mixed about whether they rely more on lexical “key words” or on syntactic structure. We tested this in Spanish with children and adolescents while recording their eye movements during a sentence–picture matching task.

What we investigated

We asked whether DHH readers rely more on syntax or on lexical cues when comprehending simple and complex sentences, and how they compare to typically hearing peers.

How we did it

We worked with 20 DHH and 20 age-matched hearing students. After reading sentences (active, passive, focalized complements, and relative clauses), they chose among four pictures: the correct one, a syntactic foil (same characters, reversed roles), and two lexical foils (added an unseen element). We analyzed where and how long they fixated.

What we found

1. Accuracy: DHH readers matched hearing peers on simple active sentences but struggled more with complex structures (passives, focalized complements, relatives).
2. Eye movements (correct trials): both groups looked longest at the target, then at the syntactic foil, and least at lexical foils—syntax weighed more than lexicon.
3. DHH readers spent more time than hearing peers on lexical foils, suggesting they also consider lexical cues; overall, there was no strict lexical-vs-syntactic preference in DHH.

Why it matters

For psychology, education, and speech-language therapy, early and explicit training in grammatical comprehension—especially complex sentences—is recommended. Sentence–picture matching tasks and materials that highlight function words (by/por, a, que) can help DHH students leverage syntax confidently and avoid “world knowledge” traps. Designing activities that disentangle and practice both lexical and syntactic cues is particularly useful.

Future directions

We could not contrast device types or age-at-implantation, and lexical foils may have been relatively easy. Future work should (a) titrate lexical-foil difficulty, (b) measure decision confidence alongside accuracy, and (c) trial interventions focused on complex structures and function-word training.