Suchergebnisse

The study examined school functioning of Israeli Arab children with hearing impairment (HI) who were included in regular education classrooms, in comparison to their classmates with normal hearing (NH). Ninety-three children (60 NH and 33 HI), grades 1–6, participated. Teachers evaluated the children using the Arabic version of the Screening Instrument for Targeting Educational Risks (SIFTER; Anderson, 1989); they also reported children's achievement levels in Arabic and mathematics. Results demonstrated that the HI children's functioning was lower than that of the NH children. Children with unilateral and minimal hearing losses had lower functioning than those with more severe hearing loss. As grade level increased, functioning decreased among HI children. Use of the SIFTER was beneficial in detecting children with difficulties. Regular, ongoing SIFTER use and appropriate follow-up on the results may better enable each child to perform optimally in class.

The language effects on repair strategies employed by 7 bilingual
deaf children (native signers who also used spoken language) was
examined. During two sessions—one conducted in sign language and
the other in spoken language—each child described a picture. The
examiner stopped the child twice to request clarification. The children's
responses to the requests were coded into seven repair strategies. Results
indicated that language mode significantly influenced repair strategy
behavior: In sign language, the children used a greater frequency,
variety, and level of strategies. The position of the clarification
request also had an effect: Later in the sequence, the children used
more advanced strategies. It was assumed that these native signers
evidenced a higher language level in sign, which allowed them to use more
advanced communicational strategies in sign than in spoken language. This
performance gap should be considered in intervention.