Conservation Interrogation of Deaf and Normal Hearing Children

Abstract

Piaget (1952) has proposed that comprehension of the conservation principle reflects a level of conceptualization where a child understands that one dimension of an item can be altered without changing that item's overall quantity status because of compensating changes on another dimension. The data to support this notion come from the type of explanations children give when interrogated about their conservation judgments. It has been argued that the interrogation step in a Piagetian conservation problem is extra-cognitive (Brainerd, 1973) and becomes more a test of a child's linguistic skill than cognitive skill (Furth, 1973). For deaf children, such an interrogation requirement could result in an underestimation of their conservation ability. Comparison of deaf and normal-hearing children's explanations of their conservation judgments indicated that both populations were similar. No support for Furth's contention that the interrogation step inhibits conservation in deaf children was found. Furthermore, the predominant types of conservation explanation for both populations cast some doubt on Piaget's account of conservation acquisition.