I hate this........

It's weird to see how the population compares spelling to intelligence. Spelling is more of a indicator of how much attention the person has, how much attention they put to learning how a word is spelled, or when they write their own words. Grammar and word structure is something else, now that definitely can have links to intelligence.

No matter how much we try to improve any latin or alphabet based language, there will always be people who don't catch on the boat. That is due to the way these languages are created with an alphabet structure. This problem exists for Spanish, Italian, Russian, French, so on. They have their spelling problems too.

For places where they use symbolic/syllabic and logographic languages (Middle eastern areas, Asia) there are alphabets but they are only to help learn the language, they aren't mandatory for everyday life. One can learn the language by not even knowing the alphabet.

Since there is only one way the word can be written in those languages, it's nearly impossible to 'mispell' other than forgetting a stroke or something, but most people would know what you wrote since the words are in symbolic form, these areas don't really have problems with measuring 'spelling rates'.

ASL is like a hybridized version of this issue, it bypasses the need to spell when you sign since you skip all the need to use alphabets. That's until you have to fingerspell it, then you start seeing the spelling issue.
 
So many conflicting studies on this, and so many variables, but this article addresses a question of whether or not Deaf kid's spelling deficits vs. hearing kids found (these are predominantly ASL-using deaf, specifically) are tied to issues of phonological sensitivity.

This later article, on the other hand, found that while a significant gap in literacy/reading ability exists between hearing and deaf kids studied, there's no difference in ability to spell.
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Grendel, very interesting articles; thanks for posting those.
 
Spelling isn't a good area to focus on for research other than attention and memorization patterns, to me.

If you want to measure how attentive any deaf or hearing person is, just go converse to them and watch them. See if they forget what you said later and that's it.
 
naisho said:
It's weird to see how the population compares spelling to intelligence. Spelling is more of a indicator of how much attention the person has, how much attention they put to learning how a word is spelled, or when they write their own words. Grammar and word structure is something else, now that definitely can have links to intelligence.

No matter how much we try to improve any latin or alphabet based language, there will always be people who don't catch on the boat. That is due to the way these languages are created with an alphabet structure. This problem exists for Spanish, Italian, Russian, French, so on. They have their spelling problems too.

For places where they use symbolic/syllabic and logographic languages (Middle eastern areas, Asia) there are alphabets but they are only to help learn the language, they aren't mandatory for everyday life. One can learn the language by not even knowing the alphabet.

Since there is only one way the word can be written in those languages, it's nearly impossible to 'mispell' other than forgetting a stroke or something, but most people would know what you wrote since the words are in symbolic form, these areas don't really have problems with measuring 'spelling rates'.

ASL is like a hybridized version of this issue, it bypasses the need to spell when you sign since you skip all the need to use alphabets. That's until you have to fingerspell it, then you start seeing the spelling issue.
Click to expand...

To be specific, spelling is more of an indicator of the degree of visual attention the individual employs, and whether they are more receptive to top down or bottom up processing.
 
jillio said:
To be specific, spelling is more of an indicator of the degree of visual attention the individual employs, and whether they are more receptive to top down or bottom up processing.
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Interesting. Which one are good spellers? Top down or bottom up?
 
Beach girl said:
Grendel, very interesting articles; thanks for posting those.
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Might try looking at Psychology of the Deaf. Includes the actual cognitive tests used that indicate a difference in processing of information and how it applies to deaf spellers. The findings of the many tests used to make a determination lead to the conclusion that deaf spellers are indeed better spellers because the task requires visual attention and bottom down processing, both of which have been shown for eons to be strengths of the deaf. They also score higher on all forms of pattern recognition, a skill that leads to better spelling.
 
Glenn said:
Interesting. Which one are good spellers? Top down or bottom up?
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Top down. The reason being, when we see a word, we do not see individual letters or syllables. We see a whole shape, and that is what the brain recognizes. We then break that whole shape into parts, hence "top down". This is related to pattern recognition, another strength that has been found in the deaf through cognitive testing procedures.
 
jillio said:
Top down. The reason being, when we see a word, we do not see individual letters or syllables. We see a whole shape, and that is what the brain recognizes. We then break that whole shape into parts, hence "top down".
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Because deaf people cant hear the English language being spoken, we have to learn it visually hence making us see the words as wholes.
 
naisho said:
Spelling isn't a good area to focus on for research other than attention and memorization patterns, to me.

If you want to measure how attentive any deaf or hearing person is, just go converse to them and watch them. See if they forget what you said later and that's it.
Click to expand...

It is not about someone being attentive. It is about the attention paid in specific ways to information processing. And pattern recognition is extremely important to other cognitive functions.
 
shel90 said:
Because deaf people cant hear the English language being spoken, we have to learn it visually hence making us see the words as wholes.
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Right. Hearing people see the words as wholes, as well, but then they interfere with the processing by trying to phonetically break the word down.
 
jillio said:
Top down. The reason being, when we see a word, we do not see individual letters or syllables. We see a whole shape, and that is what the brain recognizes. We then break that whole shape into parts, hence "top down". This is related to pattern recognition, another strength that has been found in the deaf through cognitive testing procedures.
Click to expand...
:hmm: Very enlightening. But then again, many of your posts have this characteristic.
 
bottom down processing, both of which have been shown for eons to be strengths of the deaf. They also score higher on all forms of pattern recognition, a skill that leads to better spelling
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hence "top down". This is related to pattern recognition, another strength that has been found in the deaf through cognitive testing procedures.
Click to expand...

So bottom up? down? and top down processing are both strengths of the deaf?
 
Clearly you're a better person than I am! Well-done.

I didn't know in which direction the mistake was made, whether from the top or the bottom.
 
Beach girl said:
Clearly you're a better person than I am! Well-done.

I didn't know in which direction the mistake was made, whether from the top or the bottom.
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Clearly? PFH never said anything about you. He just said he was glad he had the capacity to figure it out.

You can figure it out too. I know it looked confusing at first, but what are the possibilities? Define what top-down or bottom up mean first, then the obvious solution is that Jillio made an error.
 
Glenn said:
Clearly? PFH never said anything about you. He just said he was glad he had the capacity to figure it out.

You can figure it out too. I know it looked confusing at first, but what are the possibilities? Define what top-down or bottom up mean first, then the obvious solution is that Jillio made an error.
Click to expand...

Shhhh, let the haters hate me. ;)
 
Deaf are better spellers because they are more practiced at it. Finger-spelling Names and Places etc on a day to day basis.
 
One of my pet-peeves is the misuse of: there, their, they're; your, you're; here and hear. It is not a sign of intelligence level, but of lack of education.
 
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