Abstract
Children with hearing impairment or deafness experience cognitive function delays but not limited visual-spatial working memory, which is commonly used to solve mathematical problems. Previous studies have discovered that visual or spatial working memory in such children is different because of the communication methods that rely on vision. This study explores the visual-spatial working memory in children with deafness by measuring the memory of 70 elementary school children with deafness and identifying their communication methods through questionnaires. The questionnaires were completed by the children’s parents. The visual-spatial working memory measurement utilized the Lion Game through Zoom meetings. Consequently, it was found that there was no significant difference in visual-spatial working memory capacity in children with hearing impairment using oral, total communication, and sign language. It can be argued that in children with deafness, their visual-spatial working memory span with oral, total, and sign language communication methods have still not reached the maximum point. The use of hearing aids, popular among such children also did not significantly enhance visual-spatial working memory capacity. This research recommends parents be more attentive not only toward the communication methods of children with deafness but also to their cognitive function development.
Highlights
Every child with deafness experiences varying degrees of delay in cognitive development
Participants were distributed into groups based on their communication methods, and from those groups, children with deafness were analyzed based on their visual-spatial working memory capacities
The results showed no significant difference in visual-spatial working memory capacity, so it can be concluded that visual languages did not play a significant role in differentiating children with deafness’ visual-spatial working memory
Summary
Every child with deafness experiences varying degrees of delay in cognitive development. The differences in hearing loss levels, the onset of hearing loss, the environment, and the communication method vary from one child to another These differences may result in a unique variety of cognitive developments among children with deafness. A developing research area in the distinctive aspect of cognitive functioning in children with deafness is visual-spatial working memory. Based on data by Allen (1989, 2002), children with deafness, especially those of elementary school age, do not experience delays and have abilities in accordance with their age when working on mathematical questions or counting skills; it can be assumed that children with deafness do not experience insufficiencies in their visual-spatial working memory capacities. The research result makes visual-spatial working memory an area in cognitive functioning that is noteworthy to be studied in children with deafness, overall, children with deafness still experience cognitive developments that do not function optimally
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