Severe-To-Profound Hearing-Impaired Children's Comprehension of Figurative Language

Abstract

This study investigated severe-to-profound hearing-impaired school-age children's comprehension of figurative language. Twelve severe-to-profound hearing-impaired children, ages 9 to 19 years, served as subjects. Twenty sentences, subdivided into four groups (similes, metaphors, idioms, proverbs) comprised the stimulus items. Subjects were instructed to read the sentences and explain them. Three judges rated the subjects' responses on a scale from one (literal interpretation) to three (nonliteral interpretation). Data generated from the hearing-impaired group were compared with the performance of a control group. A significant between-group diference was noted. Furthermore, a regression analysis indicated that the hearing-impaired subjects' performance appeared more dependent upon reading level and was variable across chronological age. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE is language which deviates from the literal or standard construction, from the established and expected significance to achieve special meaning or effect (Robertson, 1973). According to Wiig and Semel (1976), the ability to identify changes in word meanings and translate the word meanings into abstract and generalized language is basic to the comprehension of figurative language. During early adolescence, it becomes increasingly important to appropriately interpret and use figurative references in both social and academic situations (Wiig & Semel, 1976).Investigators have studied the comprehension of figurative language by severeto-profound hearing impaired children and assert that such individuals demonstrate difficulty understanding such references (Myklebust, 1953; Blackwell, Engen, Fischgrund, & Zaracadoolas, 1978). It has also been reported that severe-toprofound hearing impaired adolescents, either interpret something as literal or it is absurd and therefore, the material is interpreted as insignificant.Acquisition offigurative language in normally-developing children. Billow (1975) indicated that metaphor comprehension is related to maturing cognitive operations suggesting that a &dquo;figurative sense&dquo; is evident as early as five and seven years of at SIMON FRASER LIBRARY on June 3, 2015 cdq.sagepub.com Downloaded from

Inferencing Abilities of Deaf College Students: Foundations and Implications for Metaphor Comprehension and Theory of Mind

“…In this study metaphors were also poorly understood by the deaf college students, a result consistent with Orlando and Shulman (1989), who found that explanations of metaphors provided by deaf children were more likely to be literal (i.e., concrete) than those provided by hearing peers. The present findings indicated that the deaf participants were more likely to select partially abstract or literal/irrelevant interpretations than their hearing counterparts, whereas the hearing participants were more likely to select the most abstract interpretations for the metaphors.…”

“…Iran-Nejad et al (1981) suggested that deaf children and adolescents are able to understand written metaphorical language but do not spontaneously "look" for metaphorical interpretations if the task does not explicitly demand it, and they are not prompted to do so. Orlando and Shulman (1989) asked deaf adolescents and young adults to provide the meanings of metaphors. The responses of the deaf youngsters were significantly more literal as compared with hearing peers, but they became more abstract with age and reading ability.…”

The effects of a fluent signing narrator in the Iowa E-Book on deaf children's acquisition of vocabulary, book related concepts, and enhancement of parent-child lap-reading interactions

“…Of these, 75% were used to convey a main idea of the story. Many researchers have found that deaf students perform less well on tests of figurative language than hearing students (Iran-Nehad, Ortony & Rittenhouse, 1981;Giorcelli, 1982;Orlando & Shulman, 1989). Deaf children's depressed abilities in this area may have to do with a lack of exposure to these literary devices.…”