Learning pace of Deaf vs. Hearing kids

RockDrummer,

Here's a link with comparison Hearing - Deaf students...
It's a presentation, but includes under the graphs some references to studies....

(The things we store on our harddisk...)
 
shel90 said:
I will have to search in the American Anals for the Deaf at my work. I do my research thru the old fashioned way...finding hard copies rather than on the Internet. If I can find some, I will let u know. It should be interesting. :)
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:iolol:
 
Thanks IPT John and Cloggy. There is some good information on those links.
 
I grew up around hearing kids and went to the same school as them. I think my learning pace was the same as them even though I had to compromise some things like extra hours spent with speech therapists and one on one time with the deaf ed teacher.

If u are asking about the pace of congnitive processing skills, I think they are the same but deaf children learn with the visual approach while hearing kids learn with the auditory approach.

Hope that is what your question was referring to.
 
Thank you Shel and while I respect your view I am really looking for statistics and studies etc. as opposed to opinions and life experiences. While I do beleive those are important, they don't provide and accurate cross section.
 
I can't find specific facts or references, but I did find out a few things from some people at NTID.

A high percentage of deaf students tend to graduate high school with 3rd grade to 7th grade reading, writing, and math level.
 
VamPyroX said:
I can't find specific facts or references, but I did find out a few things from some people at NTID.

A high percentage of deaf students tend to graduate high school with 3rd grade to 7th grade reading, writing, and math level.
Click to expand...
That is about what I am seeing too allthough what I have read indicates a 4th grade level.
 
rockdrummer said:
That is about what I am seeing too allthough what I have read indicates a 4th grade level.
Click to expand...

Just out of curiosity, why is that? Is it because the general education approach is not adequate? Or they generally don't get the support they need at home or school? It is specific to language acquisition issues (i.e., not getting sign to give them a base language to work with)? Perhaps, it is all of the above.

From all the posts here and elsewhere, it seems to come down to language acquisition issues. Without a firm base to start with, one is destined to failure no matter how intelligent one is. They may be a few that can do an "end around" the system but not many. I can remember that I astounded the establishment with picking up English very easily and was ahead of both the deaf and hearing kids for my age especially in reading abilities. They had to put me in reading classes two or three grades ahead to keep me challenged and on track.
 
sr171soars said:
Just out of curiosity, why is that? .......
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I find the comparison with foreign languages goes a long way.

Put a spanish child in an italian class, and my guess is that it's grades will not be impressive...
 
sr171soars said:
Just out of curiosity, why is that? Is it because the general education approach is not adequate? Or they generally don't get the support they need at home or school? It is specific to language acquisition issues (i.e., not getting sign to give them a base language to work with)? Perhaps, it is all of the above.

From all the posts here and elsewhere, it seems to come down to language acquisition issues. Without a firm base to start with, one is destined to failure no matter how intelligent one is. They may be a few that can do an "end around" the system but not many. I can remember that I astounded the establishment with picking up English very easily and was ahead of both the deaf and hearing kids for my age especially in reading abilities. They had to put me in reading classes two or three grades ahead to keep me challenged and on track.
Click to expand...


yep it was all of the above. Since my school has adopted the public school curriculm, the deaf children at the regular ed programs are doing a lot better. So we got that problem solved...now we have to work on the children who do not have language support at home or those who missed the first 5 years of language development. We have 2 reading specialists working with those children numerous times. I gotta give my school a lot of credit for changing the programs in the past 5 years. We see each child as an individual learner and use whatever teaching approaches that works with them which is why many of our classes are small (in the special ed program). It is a CHALLENGE and of course it wont solve all the problems but at least the the educational approach has changed a lot for the better. I hope the other deaf schools have done the same thing. I know The Learning Center in Mass uses the public school curriculm.
 
sr171soars said:
Just out of curiosity, why is that? Is it because the general education approach is not adequate? Or they generally don't get the support they need at home or school? It is specific to language acquisition issues (i.e., not getting sign to give them a base language to work with)? Perhaps, it is all of the above.

From all the posts here and elsewhere, it seems to come down to language acquisition issues. Without a firm base to start with, one is destined to failure no matter how intelligent one is. They may be a few that can do an "end around" the system but not many. I can remember that I astounded the establishment with picking up English very easily and was ahead of both the deaf and hearing kids for my age especially in reading abilities. They had to put me in reading classes two or three grades ahead to keep me challenged and on track.
Click to expand...
You (as usual) have hit the nail on the head. One of my purposes for this thread is to illustrate a few points that I am hopeful everyone can agree on.

Point 1. Based on accepted measurement standards the statistics indicate that a majority (near half ??) of deaf children graduate high school at 4th grade education level. Please use the links provided in this thread for reference to those numbers.


Point 2. Some of the variables impacting the learning process include;
Parental involvement, teaching methods and the level of hearing be it assisted or natural.

Point 3. Anyone (deaf or hearing) graduating at a 4th grade education level will be at a dis-advantage in many aspects of life including competition in the job market.

The next interesting statistics would be;

Are there direct relationships between the grade level of graduating students and the variables mentioned in point 2. In other words; Do kids graduate with higher education levels if they have been taught in a certian way? Or if there parents were involved? Or if they have some ability to hear and if so, is there a direct relationship between how welll they hear and how well they do?

I am also interested in hearing for those that may dis-agree with anything said here and why they dis-agree.
 
rockdrummer said:
You (as usual) have hit the nail on the head. One of my purposes for this thread is to illustrate a few points that I am hopeful everyone can agree on.

Point 1. Based on accepted measurement standards the statistics indicate that a majority (near half ??) of deaf children graduate high school at 4th grade education level. Please use the links provided in this thread for reference to those numbers.


Point 2. Some of the variables impacting the learning process include;
Parental involvement, teaching methods and the level of hearing be it assisted or natural.

Point 3. Anyone (deaf or hearing) graduating at a 4th grade education level will be at a dis-advantage in many aspects of life including competition in the job market.

The next interesting statistics would be;

Are there direct relationships between the grade level of graduating students and the variables mentioned in point 2. In other words; Do kids graduate with higher education levels if they have been taught in a certian way? Or if there parents were involved? Or if they have some ability to hear and if so, is there a direct relationship between how welll they hear and how well they do?

I am also interested in hearing for those that may dis-agree with anything said here and why they dis-agree.
Click to expand...

For my personal experience (I am sorry..I know u want statistics) the direct relationship btn how well I hear and how well I did wasnt the case for me since I have a severely profound hearing loss and yet I graduated with a 13 greade reading level. My writing was average..nothing exceptional about it.

When I was in grad school studying deaf ed and language acquistion, I took one class about research methods (not the official name) and the instructor pointed out that we have to be careful about believing the research done on deaf children and education cuz we have to look out for the selection process, the bias, and the validity of the results. Gosh that was 7 years ago..I wish I can remember more but when I read any studies, I look out for the kind of subjects they used, how they were picked, was it in a controlled or non controlled setting, the variables, and the author's bias.
 
Cloggy said:
I find the comparison with foreign languages goes a long way.

Put a spanish child in an italian class, and my guess is that it's grades will not be impressive...
Click to expand...

Er...we already see that with the Hispanic kids in our country and trying to cope with learning English in school. So, you are right on the mark with that statement.

Although with deaf kids, it is alot more complicated than just having different language skills.

Shel90 - I'm glad to hear they are allowing more deaf kids to use the public school curriculum. FYI - I just wish the public school curriculum was tougher than it is now. I do believe expectations can be much higher and kids can respond to it. IMHO - I think there has been too much "dumbing" down the standards over the years. But that is another story...;)

Rockdrummer - To answer your point #2, antidotally I would say that with deaf kids having either decent hearing (aided) and/or sign would go a long way to get these kids going. But I can tell you that parential involvement is another extremely important element. Not so much to be "taskmasters" but more along the lines of guiding and encouraging them to achieve the best they can do (not what the parents could do themselves...big difference and many parents live vicariously through their children in the wrong way unfortunately...)
 
shel90 said:
I grew up around hearing kids and went to the same school as them. I think my learning pace was the same as them even though I had to compromise some things like extra hours spent with speech therapists and one on one time with the deaf ed teacher.

If u are asking about the pace of congnitive processing skills, I think they are the same but deaf children learn with the visual approach while hearing kids learn with the auditory approach.

Hope that is what your question was referring to.
Click to expand...

I am in the same category, those deafies growing up among hearies. I'd say that English is really my first language.
 
sr171soars said:
Just out of curiosity, why is that? Is it because the general education approach is not adequate? Or they generally don't get the support they need at home or school? It is specific to language acquisition issues (i.e., not getting sign to give them a base language to work with)? Perhaps, it is all of the above.

From all the posts here and elsewhere, it seems to come down to language acquisition issues. Without a firm base to start with, one is destined to failure no matter how intelligent one is. They may be a few that can do an "end around" the system but not many. I can remember that I astounded the establishment with picking up English very easily and was ahead of both the deaf and hearing kids for my age especially in reading abilities. They had to put me in reading classes two or three grades ahead to keep me challenged and on track.
Click to expand...
It can be for a number of reasons.

When I was growing up, I went to mainstream school. All schools that I went to had deaf programs and also put some deaf students in classes with hearing students.

Those who were in deaf classes were given more flexibility with their grades. A lot of them had their grades "modified" for passing on to the next grade level.

One guy I knew would take 7th grade math. Whenever he was given a test, he would struggle and the teacher would do half of the problems for him. As a result, he only got the work half done. By next year, he did the other half.

Real math usually begins around 3rd or 4th grade. If we were to reduce the amount of hard work done to get to the next grade level...

3rd grade in 3rd and 4th grade; 4th grade in 5th and 6th grade; 5th grade in 7th and 8th grade; 6th grade in 9th and 10th grade; 7th grade in 11th and 12th grade... then those students graduate high school at 7th grade math level.

That's how it was for this guy in my high school.

I remember them giving us a test to see how well-educated we were... like a placement exam. He was given a large-print book with 7th grade level math and his teacher did half of the test for him. :roll:
 
VamPyroX said:
It can be for a number of reasons.

When I was growing up, I went to mainstream school. All schools that I went to had deaf programs and also put some deaf students in classes with hearing students.

Those who were in deaf classes were given more flexibility with their grades. A lot of them had their grades "modified" for passing on to the next grade level.

One guy I knew would take 7th grade math. Whenever he was given a test, he would struggle and the teacher would do half of the problems for him. As a result, he only got the work half done. By next year, he did the other half.

Real math usually begins around 3rd or 4th grade. If we were to reduce the amount of hard work done to get to the next grade level...

3rd grade in 3rd and 4th grade; 4th grade in 5th and 6th grade; 5th grade in 7th and 8th grade; 6th grade in 9th and 10th grade; 7th grade in 11th and 12th grade... then those students graduate high school at 7th grade math level.

That's how it was for this guy in my high school.

I remember them giving us a test to see how well-educated we were... like a placement exam. He was given a large-print book with 7th grade level math and his teacher did half of the test for him. :roll:
Click to expand...


*Shakes my head*

It is as if the educational system doesn't believe those that are deaf can learn anything... I was mainstreamed and I wasn't given any "slack" so to speak. In other words, I had a set of expectations to meet and I did that and more. Of course, being in a mainstreamed situation sort of "lumps" you with the hearing.

As for deaf schools, it really boggles my mind that in general (not all deaf schools are like this) they don't expect much from the deaf kids. What a waste... No wonder many have so much trouble in the real world after they leave school.
 
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