The Story of an Outlier: … A Case Study of One Young Deaf Child and His Journey Towards Early Mathematical Competence

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the story behind one young deaf child who demonstrated exceptional early mathematical competence and the individual and family characteristics that might have contributed to his success. As an outlier, this child achieved a score on a test of early mathematical ability that was two standard deviations higher than the next highest score. Using qualitative methodology, this study examines factors that may have contributed to this child's early mathematical success including family, home, and individual learning behaviours such as engagement, resilience, curiosity, and challenge seeking. Findings indicate that there is value to examining the story behind outlier scores and that multiple factors are likely to contribute to success.

The development of early numeracy in deaf and hard of hearing children acquiring spoken language

“…Accordingly, we predict that DHH children with full access to language from birth will not exhibit delays in early numeracy—for example, deaf children of deaf adults who learn sign language from birth. Indeed, a qualitative study indicated that the subgroup of deaf children who were successful on early numeracy measures also had, in six out of seven cases, at least one deaf parent and ASL exposure in the home (Kritzer, 2008b; Kritzer, 2012). A recently completed larger scale investigation bears out this hypothesis.…”

The Validity and Reliability of Instruments for Measuring Elementary School Students' Early Mathematical Ability

“…Regarding the interaction of early mathematical abilities with learning, it was found that there was no interaction between learning and Early Mathematical Ability in improving the reasoning abilities of eighth-grade junior high school students (Ayal, Kusuma, Subandar, & Dahlan, 2016). Through qualitative research, the development of students' early math abilities could be handled well by not only focusing on early math concepts at home but also by focusing on developing learning behaviors, such as engagement, resilience, curiosity, and challenge seeking (Kritzer, 2012). The parental reports about the amount of children's activity at home predicted the children's performance on standardized early math ability tests (Blevins-Knabe & Musun-Miller, 1996).…”