Cognitive Processing of Students with and without Hearing Loss

Abstract

We examined the performance of students with and without hearing loss in tasks measuring three cognitive processes: planning, simultaneous processing, and successive processing. Students with prelingual hearing losses, 10 and 13 years of age, and hearing students comparable in age 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 loss 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 poorly in both verbal and nonverbal tasks. In regard to planning tasks, the students with hearing loss not only scored lower compared to the hearing students but also appeared to be using inadequate strategies and investing less effort. Educational implications of these findings are discussed, as is the value of a longitudinal study in determining whether their planning difficulty was developmental or not.