Prelingual, profoundly deaf children (90 db. loss unaided in the better ear over the speech range) lack one major sensory channel essential for normal learning, therefore they must rely almost exclusively on vision for learning. They must learn to make meaningful visual associations in order to understand the world around them. These associations have particular relevance for language acquisition and communication. A child with normal hearing makes visual associations too, (e.g. white with milk), however, this child has the additional auditory and vocal information input to assist the learning process. Unlike his deaf counterpart, he often hears the word "milk" without seeing the object which the word represents. Furthermore, if a picture of an object is presented to a child, he can say the word it represents. As a child matures and develops, he learns to read and write these words and has therefore some degree of linguistic competence. Here language will mean the spoken and written language of a culture. Language affects mediation, which is defined as a response or series of responses which intervene between the external stimulus and the overt response to provide stimulation that influences the eventual course of behaviour, (Kendler and Kendler, 1959). The mediation habits of hearing and deaf children provided a theoretical framework for this study. Color-Picture (C-P) and Color-Word (C-W) experiential and task paired associates were compared utilizing three conditions: (natural) matched, neutral, and reversed for two age levels of deaf and hearing children, CA 7 and CA 11. The number of errors in associations was the response measure and the data were analyzed by a 2x2x2x3 analysis of variance with replication. The specific hypotheses tested were: (1) The deaf Ss would have significantly lower mean error scores on the reversal condition than their hearing peers. (2) The CA 7 year old group would have significantly higher mean error scores than the CA 11 year group. (3) The Color-Word task would produce significantly higher mean error scores than the Color-Picture task. (4) The reversal condition would have significantly more mean errors than the neutral or matched condition. Justification for these hypotheses are: (1) The study by Furth and Youniss (1964) found the deaf Ss made fewer errors on the reversal condition. This was interpreted to be a result of less verbally mediated interference by the deaf. (2) Developmental studies indicate better performance by older groups. (Furth 1964, Reese 1959, Kendler and Kendler 1961). (3) Furth and Youniss (1964) found an interference condition (reversal) more difficult than a non-interference condition (neutral, matched). (4) A-priori, Color-Word association requires more abstraction than Color-Picture and is therefore more difficult. The results of the analysis of variance indicated: (1) No significant difference was found •between hearing Ss and deaf Ss. (2) A significant difference (p<. 01) between CA 7 and CA 11, the older group making fewer errors. (3) The reversal condition was significantly the most difficult of the three conditions (p<.01). (4) A significant difference (p<. 01) between tasks, the C-W task accounting for more errors. Significant Two Way Interactions (p<.01) were noted: Age x Hearing Status and Age x Task. A Three Way Interaction - Age x Task x Conditions was also significant (p<.05). The absence of a significant difference in performance by hearing and deaf Ss was contrary to one of the major hypotheses of the study. This seems to indicate that the mediation habits of the two hearing status groups, whatever their nature, do not significantly differentiate the groups in performance on association type tasks. The significant differences found between Age, Task and Conditions as main effects are not independent but must be qualified by the statistically significant interaction among these three variables. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1972. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (J.C.L.)--Catholic University of America, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 66-70).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 219-230). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University

This experimental study grew out of the ideas gleaned from a review of literature which indicated that the attitudinal role of the classroom teacher serves as a model for students. A justification of the need to modify behaviors toward the hearing-impaired became apparent. The significance of effective workshop procedures could result in notable implications for school district planning and implementation of an in-service education plan. An experimental study was conducted to determine if teacher attitudes toward the hearing-impaired can be modified using two types of in-service workshops, passive versus active participation. Three groups of randomly selected regular classroom teachers at the elementary level from a West coast suburban school district were used for this investigation (Ṉ=86). One group served as a control, a second group participated in active involvement workshops regarding the hearing-impaired student, and the third group attended passive involvement workshops regarding the hearing impaired student. Immediately following the workshops, participants were administered two scales designed to measure attitudes toward the hearing-impaired. The research hypothesis for the study was that not all subpopulation means of the scores of teachers for both scales will be equal. (H₁: not all's are equal.) The statistical hypothesis stated that all subpopulation means of the scores of teachers for both scales will be equal. The results, after submitting the data to SPSS Subprogram, ONEWAY (Nie et al., 1975), with alpha set at .05 yielded no statistically significant differences among the groups. The statistical hypothesis was not rejected. The results of this study imply the need for school districts to pre-test teachers' attitudes in determining a need for specific in-service courses. School districts should consider requiring in-service courses for teachers whose pre-test scores indicate negative attitudes. Another implication to consider for effective in-service education is the duration of the workshop. The workshops designed for this study were one hour in length and did not result in effective modification of attitudes toward the hearing-impaired. This investigation suggests that research is needed to establish the relationship between effective in-service training and positive attitude development.

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