The Effect of Instructional Manipulation on the Cognitive Performance of Normal-Hearing and Deaf Children

Abstract

The performance of 52 deaf and 36 normal-hearing children was compared on Piagetian conservation tasks presented under two conditions. In the modified version, the instructions of the task were manipulated so that the conservstion attribute was specific. In the Piagetian condition, there were statistically significant performance differences between the normal-hearing children and the deaf children in favor of the normal hearing children. In the modified condition there were not statistically significant differences between the two populations. The results of the study were viewed as evidence that apparent, cognitive delay in deaf children is, in fact, not cognitive delay at all, but rather a problem with the language associated with cognitive-type problems.

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