Robert K. Rittenhouse

Metaphor and Conservation in Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children.

Eight profoundly deaf and six hard-of-hearing children participated in the study. The deaf children had hearing losses of 90dB or greater with a mean hearing loss of 98dB, and the hard-of-hearing children had losses ranging from 27db-85dB with a mean hearing loss of 65dB. All children had a bilateral loss in the speech range 500-2000 Hz (ISO). All of the children ranged in age from 11 years to 16 years 9 months (mean = 13 years) and ranged in IQ from 90-124 (mean = 107). The average language grade level of the hard-of-hearing children was 5.0, and their average reading grade level was 5.4. The average language grade level of the deaf children was 3.2, and their average reading grade level was 3.6.All of the children were presented conservation of liquid and weight problems and 12 metaphor items. The results suggest that hearing loss does not affect the solution of either conservation or metaphor. Intelligence and age factors both affected conservation and metaphor performance; however, the ability to conserve appeared to be the best predictor of metaphor comprehension.

Teaching Idiomatic Expressions: A Comparison of Two Instructional Methods

Twenty hearing-impaired children enrolled in a state residential school for deaf students in a large south central U.S. city participated in a study that compared the efficacy of two instructional designs used to teach idiomatic expressions. One of the methods consisted of videotape presentations followed by classroom discussion, and the other consisted of extended classroom discussions. The children ranged in age from 13 to 16 years, with a mean age of 13 years, 11 months. Their reading grade level scores ranged from 1.9 to 6.9, with a mean of 3-5.Sixteen popular idiomatic expressions were selected and original scripts depicting the expressions were prepared and then performed by members of the local deaf acting club. Each expression was also captioned on the tape. At the conclusion of the filming, the skits were edited into two videotapes consisting of eight idioms each.The children were randomly assigned to one of two groups: the videotape group or the classroom discussion group. Both groups improved their understanding of the idioms significantly over the course of the study. However, improvement was significantly greater when the children received instruction under the videotape method. Tests given to the students 8 and 16 weeks after the experiment showed that they had retained the knowledge.

The Effect of Instructional Manipulation on the Cognitive Performance of Normal-Hearing and Deaf Children

The performance of 52 deaf and 36 normal-hearing children was compared on Piagetian conservation tasks presented under two conditions. In the modified version, the instructions of the task were manipulated so that the conservstion attribute was specific. In the Piagetian condition, there were statistically significant performance differences between the normal-hearing children and the deaf children in favor of the normal hearing children. In the modified condition there were not statistically significant differences between the two populations. The results of the study were viewed as evidence that apparent, cognitive delay in deaf children is, in fact, not cognitive delay at all, but rather a problem with the language associated with cognitive-type problems.

Conservation Interrogation of Deaf and Normal Hearing Children

Piaget (1952) has proposed that comprehension of the conservation principle reflects a level of conceptualization where a child understands that one dimension of an item can be altered without changing that items overall quantity status because of compensating changes on another dimension. The data to support this notion come from the type of explanations children give when interrogated about their conservation judgments. It has been argued that the interrogation step in a Piagetian conservation problem is extra-cognitive (Brainerd, 1973) and becomes more a test of a childs linguistic skill than cognitive skill (Furth, 1973). For deaf children, such an interrogation requirement could result in an underestimation of their conservation ability. Comparison of deaf and normal-hearing childrens explanations of their conservation judgments indicated that both populations were similar. No support for Furths contention that the interrogation step inhibits conservation in deaf children was found. Furthermore, the predominant types of conservation explanation for both populations cast some doubt on Piagets account of conservation acquisition.

Conservation and Metaphor Acquisition in Hearing-Impaired Children: Some Relationships With Communication Mode, Hearing Acuity, Schooling, and Age

This study focused on conservation and metaphor acquisition in 35 hearing-impaired children who used different modes of communication and who spanned a wide age range. Children who used either cued speech or oral-aural communication modes were tested at two different school sites. Relationships were determined between the dependent variables, conservation and metaphor, and the independent variables of age, degree of hearing loss, years of schooling, and mode of communication.Findings revealed a significant positive relationship between conservation and metaphor in both communication modes. Significant relationships between age and metaphor and between age and conservation were also found, suggesting that experience plays an important role in understanding both of them. Neither conservation nor metaphor was significantly related to either degree of hearing loss or communication mode. The conservation order of acquisition was number (91%), weight (60%), volume (50%), and liquid (46%). Suggestions for teachers based on the findings are presented.

The Black and Deaf Movements in America Since 1960: Parallelism and an Agenda for the Future

This paper traces the political and educational movements of both black and hearing-impaired Americans since 1960 and compares their common as well as disparate but equally significant experiences. The purpose of the comparisons is to identify problems and proven solutions that collectively suggest a strategy for the continuing movement of hearing-impaired people.The authors, through their ethnicity—three are black and two are white—and personal and professional experiences bring divergent but relevant points of view to the question of multicultural coalitions and their abilities to effect social change. Four principles or suggestions for advancing the agenda of hearing-impaired Americans are presented: (1) the need to define the issues that will continue to confront hearing-impaired Americans through the year 2000, (2) the need to enlarge the membership and participation of existing coalitions, (3) the need to address local, vocational, technical, and educational issues, and (4) the need to facilitate hearing-impaired networking groups within religious, social, business, and cultural organizations.

Teaching Metaphor to Deaf Children

A research-based program for teaching metaphorical language to deaf children is described. The results of the specific research which led up to the program of instruction are presented in detail. In the research program, deaf children as young as 10 years of age were shown to be capable of understanding metaphorical language with regularity. In addition, with the use of appropriate instructional procedures, the performance of deaf children on metaphorical tasks significantly improved. Those procedures are presented as part of the instructional program.

Auditory Specialization in Deaf Children: Aural and Cognitive Interactions.

Hemispheric specialization in the brain has become a focus of study in recent years in an effort to better understand language acquisition and use in deaf children. To test the hypothesis that better-ear hearing acuity in severely hearing-impaired children will interact differentially with cognitive performance because of hemispheric influence, 27 children with bilateral, severe to profound hearing loss were divided into two comparison groups and a control group and were given a series of cognitive tasks of increasing difficulty. The authors conclude that hemispheric interactions may take place and affect cognitive performance in ways predictable from hemispheric-specialization theory and hearing ability. We offer suggestions for the focus of future research on this question.