Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

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Open Access Thesis

Keywords

Deaf children; Deaf--Means of communication; Deafness in children;

Abstract

The present study was designed to examine the abilities of normal-hearing (NH) and hearing-impaired (HI) children to repair communication breakdowns utilizing non-primary modalities (writing, drawing , showing, etc.) when listeners did not comprehend their primary mode of communication . The subjects for this study were 8 children with moderate to profound hearing losses. Hearing status for the HI subjects was no better than PTA of 39 dB HL (ANSI, 1969). The HI subjects ranged in age from 5 years, 2 months to 13 years, 1 month with a mean age of 8 years, 4 months . Each HI subject was matched to a NH peer according to gender and age . The NH subjects ranged in age from 5 years, 5 months to 13 years, 1 month with a mean age of 8 years, 6 months . The primary mode of communication for the HI subjects was spoken and signed English. The NH subjects used spoken English as their primary mode o f communication. The language skills of all subjects were assessed utilizing the Miller-Yoder Test of Grammar Comprehension (Miller & Yoder, 1984) and the ,Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test (Gardner, 1979). The experimental task required the children to request a red crayon and blue paper from an adult , Examiner II (EII) , who intentionally misunderstood the subjects' requests in sign language and/or speech to create situations of communication failure. The interactions between subjects and EII were videotaped. The dialogue was transcribed verbatim and then coded according to content and modality. The three general propositional content categories included repetition, revision, and no response. The comparison of repair performances of the two groups revealed that NH subjects took more turns; that is, they made a greater number of attempts at achieving communicative success than did HI subjects. Seventy-five percent of the NH subjects successfully obtained both objects, whereas only 25% of the HI subjects achieved at the same rate of success. HI subjects used different revision strategies relative to content; however, both groups utilized the same modalities. Furthermore, the HI subjects demonstrated a far greater number of inappropriate responses. The HI subjects relied on repetition or presented with no response, whereas the NH subjects tended to use revision strategies. The inefficiency of using successful repair strategies as demonstrated by the HI subjects in the present study would indicate that hearing-impaired individuals at various levels of education should be taught to utilize suitable repair strategies.

Year of Submission

1990

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Department of Communicative Disorders

First Advisor

Hugh L. Beykirch

Second Advisor

Clifford Highnam

Third Advisor

Gene Lutz

Comments

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Date Original

1990

Object Description

1 PDF file (75 leaves)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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