Some correlates of speech coding in the short-term memory of the deaf.

Abstract

A short-term memory test for visually presented letter sequences was given to 43 deaf students and 46 hearing housewives. Alternately the sequences were phonologically similar or dissimilar. All hearing subjects except one had worse recall with phonologically similar sequences; about half the deaf subjects found them easier. The difference, for the deaf, was examined relative to IQ, pure-tone hearing, speech hearing, and speech quality. In particular, IQ seemed not to be related to degree of verbal mediation, and the discussion considers whether training the deaf in overt speech necessarily leads to the use of covert speech.