The purpose of the study was to evaluate the appropriateness of the Hiskey Nebraska Test of Learning Aptitude as a measure of ability for Navajo students with suspected learning difficulties. Item analytic procedures were employed for the 61 students in the younger group (ages 5-10) and for the 57 students in the older group (ages 11-17). Using Hoyt's analysis of variance routine, reliability estimates of .87 (younger group) and .81 (older group) were obtained. The majority of the items discriminated in the appropriate direction for both subtest and total test scores. It was concluded that the Hiskey Nebraska Test of Learning Aptitude would give acceptably reliable and consistent results for Navajo children with suspected learning difficulties. Further research to demonstrate validity of the instrument for this population was discussed.

The current thesis has two aims to further the understanding of the cognitive underpinnings that are involved in word-learning and language processing. One aim is to understand how individuals are able to make temporary phonological and serial order representations of new words in language and non-language domains. The second aim is to investigate whether the mechanisms involved in maintaining temporary nonverbal and serial order representations are related to verbal short-term abilities. We created four behavioural tasks to determine the processing of phonological short-term memory information, nonverbal short-term memory information, serial order short-term memory information and rhythmic short-term memory. We used 30 adult Spanish-English bilinguals as the target population to also investigate whether individual language abilities in two spoken languages affect the learning of words in a foreign language with distinct prosody and phonology. The first correlational analysis revealed that performance on a serially ordered verbal short-term memory task that involved a language of unfamiliar prosody and phonology was strongly predicted by performance on two serially ordered verbal short-term memory tasks that involved languages of familiar prosody and phonology. A second correlational analysis showed that tasks that tapped into individuals’ memory for serial order in the verbal, nonverbal and rhythmic domains were weakly associated with one another. In a third correlational analysis, it was shown that individuals’ lexical knowledge of Spanish was not a predictor of their performance on a measure of their serially ordered verbal short-term memory abilities. Multiple linear regression analyses found that none of the tasks that were used to measure individuals’ abilities for processing serial order information in the verbal, nonverbal and rhythmic domain were strong predictors for foreign-word learning. Overall, the results show promising findings for the tasks that tapped into serial order short-term memory for verbal information. However, they also suggest that the nonverbal and rhythm tasks may not be reliable measures of the constructs we were hoping to study. Future work should adjust the tasks to ensure we are properly tapping into individuals’ serial order abilities in the nonverbal and rhythm domains. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

VISUAL MEMORY AS A DETERMINANT OF COMMUNICATIVE AND LEARNING COMPETENCIES IN PUPILS WITH HEARING IMPAIRMENT ABSTRACT: This submitted work concentrates on visual perception, especially on visual memory and related attention in children and pupils with hearing impairment, which from the theoretical point of view represents the most important compensatory sense for this group of people. The main part of the submitted paper consists in presenting the results of a research survey observing the levels of visual perception and attention in children and pupils in the age group 6 to 8 years old, as well as on comparing them with results achieved by a group of hearing children and pupils of the same age range. We chose four subtests focused on the current state of visual memory and attention. These subtests constitute a part of two standardized tests. The following analysis of the gained data was used to validate our hypotheses regarding the influence of the compensatory mechanism applied when processing visual inputs by people with hearing impairment existing on the level of the central nervous system. Furthermore, the paper provides processed and commented data gained from questionnaires destined for teachers. These questionnaires pursue the evaluation of communicative and learning competencies of the tested study...

This thesis deals with the diagnostics and development level of partial functions of preschool children, due to the necessity of the skills for acquiring basic school skills, ie. reading, writing and counting. Children with hearing disabilities are a specific group in this area due to the possible difficulties in obtaining information from the majority auditory society, and thus acquiring the necessary knowledge. One of the goals of the thesis presented here is to find out what diagnostic materials are suitable and evaluating for children with hearing disabilities in preschool age. Whether tests are primarily focused for this group of children or tests designed for hearing children can be used effectively. The second goal of this thesis is to determine if and to what extent there will be an improvement in test results in case of controlled activities took place with children in comparison with the period when similar activities were not carried out with them. A six-month research was conducted with selected children with hearing disabilities, during which they were repeatedly tested using two different diagnostic materials. In the second part of the research, intentional activities took place with selected children, which was contributing to the development of their partial functions. From the...