Language, arithmetic word problems, and deaf students: Linguistic strategies used to solve tasks

Abstract

There has been limited examination of the intersection between language and arithmetic in the performance of deaf students, although some previous research has shown that deaf and hearing-impaired} students are delayed in both their language acquisition and arithmetic performance. This paper examines the performance of deaf and hearing-impaired students in South-East Queensland, Australia, in solving arithmetic word problems. It was found that the subjects' solutions of word problems confirmed trends for hearing students, but that their performance was delayed in comparison. The results confirm other studies where deaf and hearing-impaired students are delayed in their language acquisition and this impacts on their capacity to successfully undertake the resolution of word problems. © 2002 MERGA Inc.