COGNITIVE PROCESSING OF STUDENTS WITH AND WITHOUT HEARING-LOSS

We examined the performance of students with and without hearing loss in tasks measuring three cognitive processes: planning, simultaneous p rocessing, and successive processing. Students with prelingual hearing losses, 10 and 13 years of age, and hearing students comparable in ag e and grade were given a verbal and a nonverbal task from each of the three types of cognitive processes. Both qualitative and quantitative scores were analyzed. Results showed that the students with hearing lo ss had an advantage at age 10 in nonverbal simultaneous and successive tasks, but a disadvantage in the verbal tasks compared to the hearing students. However, at age 13, students with hearing loss performed po orly in both verbal and nonverbal tasks. In regard to planning tasks, the students with hearing loss not only scored lower compared to the h earing students but also appeared to be using inadequate strategies an d investing less effort. Educational implications of these findings ar e discussed, as is the value of a longitudinal study in determining wh ether their planning difficulty was developmental or not.