Poor Listeners Research Articles

Sources of variation in profile analysis. I. Individual differences and extended training.

This study investigated two sources of variance in the ability to discriminate auditory profiles: individual differences and extended training. The goals of the study were (1) to determine the range and origins of individual differences in profile analysis and (2) to determine whether those who initially had poor sensitivity to changes in spectral shape could eventually acquire finer sensitivity. Profile stimuli had 11 components with equal-log spacing from 200-2200 Hz. Thresholds ranged from - 1 to -25 dB (signal level relative to the context level) across 46 listeners. The correlation between spectral-shape discrimination thresholds after 2000 trials and pure-tone intensity-discrimination thresholds was 0.36. The range of individual differences for pure-tone intensity discrimination and spectral-shape discrimination was about the same. Two groups of listeners were given extended practice on the profile task, one group that showed low thresholds after an initial 2000 trials of practice and another that showed much higher initial thresholds. All listeners improved during the course of the first 2000 trials of training. Most of the poor listeners continued to improve during 9000 trials of training. Individual differences in the listeners' sensitivity to changes in spectral shape still existed after the extended practice.

Effects of Listening Comprehension Training on Listening and Reading

In this study the effects of providing text strategy instruction in a listening mode on listening and reading comprehension of experimental and control groups of 9- to 11-year-old poor readers were examined. All students were very poor in decoding and poor in reading comprehension. In addition, half of the group were also poor listeners, whereas the other half consisted of students with normal listening test scores. The experimental program employed auditorily presented texts, and the students were trained in the strategies of clarifying, summarizing, predicting, and questioning. The program's teaching format consisted of a combination of reciprocal teaching and direct instruction. Measurements occurred according to a pretest-posttest-retention test design. The results indicated significant program effects on strategic listening and strategic reading posttests, and the results were maintained on retention tests that were administered 3 months after termination of the program. However, transfer in terms of an improved performance on more general and standardized listening and reading comprehension tests was not demonstrated.

Communication and Career Advancement

The stereotypical engineer has great technical skill but communicates poorly, and would, if allowed, work alone. However, the ability to communicate and to work with others is vital. If engineers cannot communicate, they can not convey their ideas effectively to others, contribute to group work or rise to positions of greater responsibility. Engineers who communicate well have better success in job searches and throughout their careers than engineers who communicate poorly. Some common barriers to good communication among engineers include: lack of knowledge or experience; poorly defined ideas; deficient vocabulary or language skills; disheveled personal appearance; illegible written communication; inappropriate communication; poor listening, or differences in values, attitudes and perceptions.

Improving text comprehension strategies in reading and listening settings

Traditional intervention programs for children with decoding and reading comprehension problems often focus on remediation of the decoding ability. The goal of this study was to determine whether it is possible to teach these children text comprehension strategies. The subjects were fourth-grade students from elementary schools and 9- to 11-year-old students from special schools for learning disabled children. All the children were poor in decoding and reading comprehension, and they scored poorly or normally on a listening comprehension test. Four strategies, clarifying, questioning, summarizing, and predicting were trained through direct instruction and reciprocal teaching in reading and listening settings. The effects were measured by using a pretest posttest retention test control group design. The dependent variables were the ability to apply the four strategies, general reading and listening comprehension performance, and knowledge of reading strategies. Analyses of each variable indicated significant main effects for School Types (children from elementary schools perform better than children from special schools), Listening Levels (normal listeners perform better than poor listeners), and Time of Testing (there was a general progress from pretests through retention tests). Although there were no significant main effects for Groups (experimental and control groups had similar scores), significant program effects were indicated by significant Groups × Time of Testing interactions. However, these positive program effects were restricted to pretest-posttest comparisons and they apllied more to strategic variables than to general reading comprehension.

Text comprehension strategy instruction with poor readers

The goal of this study was to investigate the effects of teachingtext comprehension strategies to children with decoding andreading comprehension problems and with a poor or normallistening ability. Two experiments are reported. Four textcomprehension strategies, viz., question generation, summarizing,clarification, and predicting were taught through directinstruction and reciprocal teaching. In both experiments, effectswere measured according to a pretest – posttest – retentiontest – control group design. Dependent variables wereexperimenter-developed strategic reading and listening tests, andstandardized reading and listening comprehension tests. In thefirst experiment the subjects were 9 to 11-year-old poor readersfrom special schools for children with learning disabilities. Inthis experiment, the intervention program's texts and strategyinstructions were presented in listening settings only. Thesubjects in the second experiment were 10-year-old children fromregular elementary schools and 9 to 11-year-old children fromspecial schools. They were also poor readers but their decodingperformance was not as poor as in the subjects in experiment 1.In experiment 2, the intervention program involved textpresentations in alternating reading and listening lessons.Although in general, normal listeners performed better on allcomprehension tests than poor listeners, there were nodifferential program effects for the two listening levels. Cleareffects of both programs were found on strategic reading andlistening tests administered directly after the interventions. Inthe first experiment, maintenance test performance showedprolonged program benefits, whereas in the second experimentthese maintenance effects were blurred by unexpected gains of thecontrol groups of students, especially from regular schools.Finally, apart from some local successes, neither of the twoexperiments offered stable evidence of transfer of comprehensionstrategy training to standardized general listening and readingcomprehension tests.

Improving Reading Comprehension Strategies through Listening

Summary The goal of this study was to determine whether it is possible to teach children with serious decoding problems four text comprehension strategies in listening contexts. The subjects were 9-11 year old students from special schools for children with learning disabilities. All the students were very poor at decoding; half of the group were also poor listeners, whereas the other half consisted of normal listeners. The experimental children were trained in strategies of clarifying, questioning, summarising and predicting through a combination of reciprocal teaching and direct instruction. The results indicated significant programme effects on a strategic listening comprehension test. A transfer effect on general listening comprehension and general reading comprehension tests was not found. The poor listeners within the experimental group did not perform better than the normal listeners.

Profiles of Listening and Reading Comprehension

Abstract Reading researchers have suggested that listening comprehension might be a better method than IQ of measuring students' optimal level of functioning in reading. This proposal raises questions about whether tests of recall of ideas in text passages suggest that processing and strategies are the same for listening and reading. To answer these questions, the authors gave regular classes of fourth, sixth, and eighth graders sentence verification tests after listening to or reading passages. Performances on different types of test sentences were analyzed to determine whether comprehenders of different groups (good listener/readers, poor listeners, poor readers, and poor listener/readers) showed similar or different patterns of comprehension processing and strategies. Results showed significant differences between groups on the listening and on the reading subtests. The results suggest that using listening as a measure of optimal functioning in reading may present problems of validity and interpretation.

Effective oral communication for business and the professions

This textbook is aimed at both students and people already on the job. Part I, “Communicating: The Nature of Communication,” provides thorough coverage of various communication problems — poor listening, nonverbal messages, language and meaning as barriers, differences in perception, and receiver hostility. Chapter 5 covers content rules (word choice) and procedural rules (methods) of communication.

Breast reconstruction following mastectomy: II. Marital characteristics of patients seeking the procedure.

Information is presented from a clinical study of 65 women and a psychometric study of 85 women. All had had mastectomies because of breast cancer and were reconstruction patients at Duke Hospital. Women seeking breast reconstruction did not exhibit characterological problems. Relatively few were in psychiatric treatment, and previous research had established the presence of positive rather than negative self-images. The marriages of women seeking this surgical procedure were positively and the women viewed their marriages as a chief source of support. Considerable satisfaction was expressed about husbands being supportive, although husbands were also viewed as poor listeners and, at times, as unable to communicate effectively. Most women were satisfied with various aspects of their sexual lives. A small percentage of the women reported problematic marriages. Various factors, related to the presence of conflict in the marriage and the ability of the husband to understand his wife, may account for the distress evidenced in these marriages. Such factors, of course, are present in any problematic marriage; it remains to be demonstrated whether these problems were caused or exacerbated by the woman's mastectomy and decision to seek breast reconstruction.

Phonotactic basis for word frequency effects: Implications for lexical distance metrics

Word frequency influences both the production and perception of speech. Speakers increase stress for infrequent words, and poor listening conditions cause listeners to mistake rare words for common ones, but not vice versa. People can also directly estimate relative word frequencies to within one order of magnitude of their objective values. To determine if word frequency effects were determined at least in part by phonotactics (versus by semantics), subjects were asked to estimate word frequencies for a list of words containing both real and nonsense words. Subjects duplicated previous results in their ability to judge the frequency of real words, and showed significant agreement in their judgements of “frequencies” for nonsense words. Subjects' judgments for the frequency of nonsense words showed significant correlation with Greenberg and Jenkins' measure for distance from English, implying that word frequencies are judged by estimating the density of similar sounding words in the lexicon. These results suggest additions to lexical distance metrics that would improve performance of speech recognition systems: small vocabulary systems could tabulate word frequency during system usage and bias recognition towards more frequently used words, while large vocabulary systems could use lexical density to modulate calculated distances between candidate words and the input utterance.

Language Intervention for Grade One Children

Small groups of children, identified as having poor listening and attention skills, or as reluctant contributors to oral expression in first grade classes, were stimulated to listen and discuss stories using "listening books" as resource materials. Two experimental studies showed considerable growth in these children's quality and quantity of oral expression and in recall of facts in a story. However, little improvement was observed in the number of syntactic errors, which suggested the need for a structured program to eliminate specific grammatical problems. The contribution of "listening books" as resource materials for first grade children "at risk" in language development is discussed.

Why Can't John Read? Perhaps He's Not a Good Listener

The relationship between listening comprehension and reading comprehension was investigated. Written and oral comprehension tasks were presented to two groups of readers, matched for IQ and chronological age but differing in their reading ability. The skilled-reader group consistently performed better than poor readers in both reading and listening tasks. The results suggest that reading comprehension and listening comprehension are dependent on the same general language processing skills and that poor readers are also poor listeners. Implications for these findings for teaching the reading disabled child are suggested.

A Celebration of Refugee Women in the Arab World

In our hurried world, we often prove to be poor listeners and shallow observers. This is certainly true of our understanding of the plight, aspirations, and contributions of refugee women living in our midst. Public discourse about refugee women is often limited to pity and sympathy. In reality they remain hidden in the shadows of society. Unless one is invited into the private sanctuaries of their confidence, built to preserve their safety, they appear faceless and the breadth of their reality remains unknown. This, in spite of their fundamental role in society and their importance in the construction of a holistic future.

A Review of the Fundamental Aspects of Motion-Picture Presentation

The presentation of a motion-picture is the ultimate realization of the talents of a multitude of creative artists. In many cases the motion-picture will ultimately be projected under poor conditions. Good viewing conditions are discussed, especially the important part that the skill of the projectionist plays in achieving the goal. The damaging effect of visual distractions, picture definition and focus, screen illumination and brightness and picture steadiness are dealt with, as well as the part that the screen itself plays in good presentation, the reason for screen masking, picture overlap and other factors all of which add up to good picture presentation. Also the question of correct sound volume, the effect of extraneous noises, the reasons for poor listening conditions and the place for nonsynchronous sound reproduction are discussed. Care and maintenance of the motion-picture projector and the film itself are dealt with, including a case for the extension of use of test films and equipment as a necessary factor in the achievement of good sound and picture presentation.

Characteristics of good listeners and poor listeners

(1968). Characteristics of good listeners and poor listeners. Journal of the Reading Specialist: Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 109-113.

Reading Abilities of High and Low Auders

Previous articleNext article No AccessReading Abilities of High and Low AudersGus P. PlessasGus P. Plessas Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Elementary School Journal Volume 63, Number 4Jan., 1963 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/460041 Views: 1Total views on this site Citations: 9Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1963 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:T. A. Wood, J. A. Buckhalt, J. G. Tomlin A Comparison of Listening and Reading Performance with Children in Three Educational Placements, Journal of Learning Disabilities 21, no.88 (Oct 1988): 493–496.https://doi.org/10.1177/002221948802100809Kenneth Kavale The Relationship Between Auditory Perceptual Skills and Reading Ability, Journal of Learning Disabilities 14, no.99 (Aug 2016): 539–546.https://doi.org/10.1177/002221948101400910Thomas A. Wood Patterns of Listening and Reading Skills in Visually Handicapped Students, Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness 75, no.55 (Mar 2020): 215–218.https://doi.org/10.1177/0145482X8107500506Judith A. Arter, Joseph R. Jenkins Differential Diagnosis—Prescriptive Teaching: A Critical Appraisal, Review of Educational Research 49, no.44 (Jun 2016): 517–555.https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543049004517Donald D. Hammill, Stephen C. Larsen The Relationship of Selected Auditory Perceptual Skills and Reading Ability, Journal of Learning Disabilities 7, no.77 (Aug 2016): 429–436.https://doi.org/10.1177/002221947400700706Dolores Warner A phonetic reading program for exceptional pupils, Journal of the Reading Specialist 8, no.11 (Oct 1968): 32–43.https://doi.org/10.1080/19388076809557032Robert M. Wilson, Dorothy D. Sullivan Teacher education‐a challenge and an answer, Journal of the Reading Specialist 7, no.33 (Mar 1968): 107–113.https://doi.org/10.1080/19388076809557008Estoy Reddin Characteristics of good listeners and poor listeners, Journal of the Reading Specialist 7, no.33 (Mar 1968): 109–113.https://doi.org/10.1080/19388076809557009Theodore L. Harris Summary of Investigations Relating to Reading July 1, 1962 to June 30, 1963 1, The Journal of Educational Research 57, no.66 (Dec 2014): 283–327.https://doi.org/10.1080/00220671.1964.10883083

Auditory Functions and Abilities in Good and Poor Listeners

Auditory Functions and Abilities in Good and Poor Listeners