Cognition, Education, and Deafness: Directions for Research and Instruction

Cognitive Improvement of Hearing-Impaired High School Students Through Instruction in Instrumental Enrichment

Cognitive Improvement of Hearing-Impaired High School Students Through Instruction in Instrumental Enrichment Bruce S. Jonas David S. Martin If one accepts the fact that certain specific cognitive deficiencies exist for hearing-impaired individuals but that no evidence suggests less than the normal range of intellectual potential among hearing-impaired individuals as a group (Drever & Collins, 1928; Levine, 1976; Vernon, 1968), then it is apparent that a specific program of activity in an educational setting may promise improvement in the deficient areas of cognition. Reuven Feuerstein (1978, 1980) developed the instructional program Instrumental Enrichment (IE) based on a set of theoretical assumptions relating to the cognitive modifiability of low-functioning adolescents. The IE goals include (a) improving performance in spatial relations, (b) improving performance in abstract analogies, (c) improving the ability to use more than one rule to solve a problem, (d) fostering more systematic approaches to problem solving, (e) fostering more accurate reading and following of directions , and (f) increasing use of appropriate language for planning and sequencing events. The IE methodology involves student manipulation of content-free paper-and-pencil activities in such skills as comparison, analysis , orientation in space, and organization, followed by discussion for insight into the mental processes used and how they also apply to the study of various subject matter. For the school using IE, some secondary or spillover effects include improvement in reading, math, and writing skills, as well as in work habits, classroom behavior, and social behavior. An evaluation aimed at assessing how IE promoted this set of goals for hearing-impaired students was implemented during the 1982-84 academic years at the Model Secondary School for the Deaf (MSSD) at Gallaudet College. (This study expanded the pilot study reported by Rohr-Redding; see pp. 168-171.) The research design was a pre- and posttest model on experimental (IE) and control (non-IE) groups, each comprised of 39 students . Experimental and control groups were matched on the basis of sex, age, and level of class placement (remedial, regular, or advanced). In order to measure and compare relative gains for all the goals listed, eight measurement instruments were administered as pretests prior to October 1982 and as posttests in the spring of 1984. These instruments were (a) Raven's Progressive Matrices (1958), (b) Kit of Factor-Referenced Cognitive Test (KFRCT)-Diagramming Relationships (Ekstrom, French, Harman, & Derman, 1976), (c) KFRCT-Letter Sets, (d) Written Problem Solutions, (e) Teacher Observation Checklist, (f) Stanford Achievement Test-HearingImpaired Version (SAT-HI) Reading Comprehension, (g) SAT-HI Math Concepts, and (h) SAT-HI Math Computation. The three psychometric tests listed here (a,b, and c) all measured aspects of ability to reason abstractly The complete version of this paper is available in microfiche or hard copy from ERIC Document Reproduction Service. Ask for Document No. ED 247 725. 172 and to group concepts into logical and analogical forms. The written problems (d) posed life-adjustment situations to students in order to measure logical problem-formulation and language sequencing. The teacher observation checklist (e) profiles the efficacy of this approach toward providing general study skills and improving classroom and social behavior. The three SAT-HI subtests (f, g, h) relate to the long-term goals of improvement in reading and mathematics. Results After 2 years in the program, the Instrumental Enrichment group demonstrated important and consistent trends. The IE group's performance gain on the Raven's Progressive Matrices was more than four times higher than that of a suitably matched group of control students (8.1 gain for the IE group vs. 1.8 for the control group), representing a statistically significant difference (p <.02). The other two psychometric tests, Diagramming Relationships and Letter Sets, showed no significant findings, but the trends for the Instrumental Enrichment group were in the direction hypothesized. Both of these factor-referenced tests were linguistically too difficult for most of the students tested. For the Problem-Solving Solutions as a whole, the Instrumental Enrichment group performed better than the control group. The significant difference was in Problem #3: "Suppose you and a friend from MSSD are having dinner at a restaurant in Washington, D.C., away from the MSSD campus. Your friend gets very sick, but no one else in the restaurant knows ASL; What would you do?" IE students' written responses to this problem showed highly significant improvement (p <.01, according to independent raters). The IE students tended to (a) use more steps, (b) systematize those steps in the solution more often, and (c) increase their usage of both contingencies and iflthen sentence constructions on the posttest. After only one year, the Instrumental Enrichment group also showed significant gains on two items on the Teacher Observation Checklist. Teachers reported significant improvements in the following work habits (p <.02) and classroom/social behaviors (p <.03): 1. Correcting mistakes spontaneously 2. Settling down to work rapidly at beginning of class 3. Taking responsibility for making up work missed 4. Giving relevant and complete answers to questions 173 Effects of Cognitive Intervention Programs 5. Taking responsibility for personal materials 6. Making a minimum number of errors and erasures 7. Reading and following directions spontaneously 8. Expecting oneself to be precise. Students also showed significant improvements in the following classroom and social behaviors: 1. Being willing to help others in class 2. Working well with others in a group 3. Being considerate of others' feelings and listening to others 4. Acting without impulsivity 5. Avoiding involvement in fights and arguments 6. Approaching new tasks positively and working with confidence 7. Volunteering to do extra work 8. Being enthusiastic about learning. The three SAT-HI achievement subtests (Reading Comprehension, Math Concepts, and Math Computation) all showed significant increases (p<.05) for the IE group. Over a period of 2 years, the Reading Comprehension scores for the IE group increased by 15.6 scaled-score points, while those for the controls gained 8.8 points. Math Concepts scores for the IE group gained 24.1 points while control scores rose by only 14.3 points. Math Computation scores for IE students gained 19.1 points while controls showed a gain of 12.2 points. One of the English teachers explained these changes in her students by noting that the teaching of comparisons, organization, and strategies are crucial prerequisites to the reading and writing process. It also appears that these skills, when applied to math, contributed to the SAT-HI performance gains. Discussion Many hearing-impaired students tend to have a touch-finish attitude about homework and class time (i.e., they attempt a task only once and then drop it), instead of developing an academic response or taking a project to its full completion. Often students do not feel an intrinsic need to compare, extrapolate , and analyze. In order to relate these cognitive skills to school subject areas, students need mediated learning experiences to move from thinking to reading, writing, and mathematics. Instrumental Enrichment apparently develops skill in metacognition (i.e., students' ability to think about their own thinking processes). IE also apparently enables students to stay more often with a project until its completion; develop an intrinsic need to compare , extrapolate, and analyze; and apply these skills to academic subjects. 174 Cognitive Improvement Through Instruction in Instrumental Enrichment Conclusions From this study of a systematic cognitive intervention, we may therefore draw the following conclusions: 1. Adolescence is apparently not too late to begin a systematic program of cognitive improvement for the hearing-impaired learner. 2. Teacher training is an essential prerequisite for curricular intervention involving content-free cognitive materials that are integrated into regular subject matter. 3. Dissemination of these results to other programs for the hearing impaired is now appropriate. 4. A larger student sample and the resulting more complex evaluation design are now appropriate for investigation and replication of these apparent effects with the hearing-impaired population. 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