Thesis PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

In Western countries, there are around 8-10% of school age children suffering from mild to moderate reading difficulties. Similarly, in Hong Kong the prevalence of reading difficulties among school age children was found to be 9.7- 12%. An understanding of the mechanisms involved in reading helps us to determine the skills necessary for successful reading. The Phonological Mediation Hypothesis (PMH), which claims that phonological recoding is a necessary phase during lexical access, is widely known for its postulation that phonological awareness would be a significant prognostic indicator of reading development. Theoretically, individuals who have difficulties in phonological recoding during lexical access should also encounter reading difficulties. Good readers with hearing impairment are, therefore, considered as counter examples of PMH. If the above prediction of PHM is true, skilled readers with hearing impairment should have the ability to develop an intact phonological representation and hence are more capable of phonological recoding. In this study, the reading behaviors of children with hearing impairment (HI), that of their reading level matched (RL) and that of their chronological age matched (CA) controls were compared in three tasks—an auditory perceptual task of onset rime awareness (TAPOR); a synonym decision task (SDT); and a homophone decision task (HDT). The results for TAPOR showed that auditory perceptual ability (APOR) accounted for 49% of the variance in the reading ability of children with hearing impairment. In addition, results of cross group comparisons on the scores in TAPOR demonstrated a possible causal relationship between APOR and reading ability in subjects with hearing impairment. On the other hand, SDT and HDT results indicated a significant preference for orthographic foils in RL and HI subjects with low reading ability. An increasing tendency to choose synonyms or homophones, and a decreasing tendency to use orthographic distractors was observed across subject groups with Primary 1, Primary 2 and Primary 6 reading abilities. A similar but delayed pattern of change in preference for distractors was observed in HI subjects. The results only partially agree with PMH. An alternative hypothesis—the Psycholinguistic Grain Size Theory (PGST) — might be a better model to explain the observed results. With reference to the results of TAPOR, the correlation between reading ability and auditory perceptual ability could be explained in terms of the ‘availability problem’ postulated in this latter model. In the same way, the early emergence of orthographic effect in almost all subjects except CA controls and the late emergence of a number of reading strategies operating at different levels of grain size can be better explained by ‘consistency problems’ and ‘granularity problems’ proposed in PGST. These findings are considered, and directions for further studies are outlined. / published_or_final_version / Speech and Hearing Sciences / Master / Master of Philosophy

There are three controversial issues in the field of intellectual styles: whether or not certain relationships exist among different style constructs (style overlap); whether or not styles are value-laden; and whether or not styles could change. The present research mainly aimed at further addressing these three controversial issues respectively by: 1) exploring the relationships between two style constructs (field dependent-independent styles and thinking styles); 2) investigating the influence of intellectual styles on quality of university life and university self-efficacy; and 3) examining how personal factors (ability and conceptions of learning) and university experiences impacted intellectual styles among university students with and without hearing impairment from art and design academic disciplines. The present research adopted quantitatively-driven mixed methods, including a pilot study, a main study with a test at Time 1 and a test at Time 2with the duration of one academic-year, and a qualitative study. The pilot study validated all the inventories among 213 students with hearing impairment and 274 students without hearing impairment. The main study examined the interrelationships among the six main research variables and how personal factors impacted intellectual styles among 256students with hearing impairment and 286students without hearing impairment. Based on results of the main study, 36 participants (16 with hearing impairment and 20 without hearing impairment) were selected for the follow-up semi-structured interviews which explored how university experiences influenced intellectual styles, partially verified quantitative findings regarding style changes, and explained some unexpected results in the main study. Results of the main study generally supported the research hypotheses. To be specific, for all the participants, results of the present research showed that: 1) thinking styles overlapped field dependent-independent styles; 2) Type II intellectual styles tended to be positively related to quality of university life in the first academic year, while Type I intellectual styles tended to be positively related to quality of university life in the second academic year; and 3) students with Type I intellectual styles tended to have higher levels of university self-efficacy, while those with Type II intellectual styles tended to have lower levels of university self-efficacy. These findings suggested that intellectual styles overlap with each other, and that intellectual styles are value-laden. It was also identified that, after studying art and design courses for one academic year, students without hearing impairment tended to score higher on Type I intellectual styles and lower on Type II intellectual styles, while students with hearing impairment tended to score higher on both Type I and Type II intellectual styles. For all the participants, both personal factors (ability and conceptions of learning) and university experiences significantly influenced their intellectual styles. These results indicated that intellectual styles are malleable. Apart from these, intellectual styles were found to mediate the relationships between personal factors and student developmental outcomes among all the participants. Discussions focus on contributions of the research findings to the styles literature and on the implications of the findings for higher education of student with and without hearing impairment. Recommendations for future studies are also made. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Speech and Hearing Sciences / Master / Master of Science in Audiology

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.I.S.)-University of Natal, Pietermartizburg, 2000.

Problems experienced by individuals in institutions tend to be hidden from the public gaze. This is so for inmates of prisons where regulations and bureaucratic structure conceal the daily life situation of prisoners from public view. Anonymity and concealment are enhanced by the widespread misperception of prisoners as an homogenous group. As a result, problems of vulnerable groups, such as people with disabilities, can be ignored. One such group is prisoners with impaired hearing. This descriptive study utilized a multidisciplinary approach to investigate the problems experienced by prisoners within the context of social control. Drawing from selected literature in health, sociology and criminology, the theoretical framework merges the labelling perspective [interactionism] with macro-level theories of social control. The study provides, for the first time, an examination of the percentage, degree and social import of hearing loss in federal prisoners in the Pacific Region of the Correctional Service of Canada. Through the use of survey, audiometric measurement, and interview techniques, an examination was undertaken of the presence and implications of partial hearing loss in inmates of federal penitentiaries in British Columbia. Interview subjects were identified through hearing testing of volunteers in eight federal penitentiaries. Data were gathered through interviews with prisoners with impaired hearing, a comparison group of prisoners with normal hearing, and a selection of custodians. Of 114 prisoners screened, 69% had some degree of impaired hearing, often previously unidentified. Custodians, 86% of the time, labelled behaviours characteristic of the hard of hearing as deviant, and often aggressive, behaviours. Prisoner accounts revealed that failure to test hearing at time of incarceration has harmful effects on performance in programmes and encounters with the justice system. A social activist approach is recommended, to address structural inequalities among prisoners and barriers for prisoners in general. This work indicates that lower-class, lower-status persons may be more susceptible to negative labelling. Prisoners with partial hearing loss, due to the often invisible nature of their condition, are particularly vulnerable to negative labelling. Study recommendations include: 1] Routine hearing screening of all prisoners at time of incarceration. 2] Education of custodians to understand behaviours and communication needs of persons with impaired hearing. 3] A partnership effort between correctional services, the disabled consumer group, and professionals, to improve the situation of prisoners who are hard of hearing.

In this investigation three groups of ten subjects each, ages seven to nine, were compared on common object picture span identification tasks to determine if the rehearsal strategies of oral labeling, signing, or total communication significantly effected their visual memory. Thethree groups consisted of a good learner/normal hearing (NH) group, a hearing impaired poor speechreader/learning disabled (LD) group, and a hearing impaired good learner/good speechreader total communication (TC) group.Subjects' picture span identification performances with and without rehearsal were compared by a one way ANOVA for difference scores. The F value of 62.026 was significant at the .01 level which demonstrated a significant difference among the groups' difference scores. Statistical results between groups indicated that the signing rehearsal strategy significantly improved the LD group's scores on the rehearsed picture span taskas compared to the oral labeling and total communication rehearsal strategies of the NH and IC groups whose rehearsal had little effect on their performance.In summary, this study showed that poor learners/poor speechreaders greatly benefitted from overt rehearsal strategies on a visual memory picture identification task.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Texas at El Paso, 2007. / Title from title screen. Vita. CD-ROM. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online.

Thesis (M. Aud.)--University of Canterbury, 2008. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (p. 92-108). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Texas at Dallas, 2008. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-105)