Visual memory in the Deaf, different researches that describe the effect of hearing loss on visual memory.

1. Deafness
& Visual MemoryHawraa Al-Romani
Zainab Hamadi
SLP Department
2014-2015

2. Visual memory:
Visual memory is the ability to recall information that has been presented
visually; for immediate recall (4-5 seconds) all of the details of a visual item
and being able to find this from a selection of items.
This involves being able to hold a mental picture of a sequence of letters,
numbers, words, objects, shapes etc.
Problems in this area may mean difficulties with remembering the correct
sequences of letters which make up words or sentences.

3. Blair’s study by far is the most frequent cited investigation in this area.
His results are summarized in table 8-1
Blair’s (1957) comprehensive study of visual memory
in deaf children
Hypothesis: was that he would find evidence of sensory compensation in the deaf children.
Deaf children were expected to have augmented Visio-spatial abilities leading to better visual short
term memory performance than their hearing age mates, a finding earlier reported by (Mott 1899).
The study
involved
53 profoundly
deaf children
Ages from 7;6 to 12;6
Group of
hearing children Same ages, nonverbal IQ as deaf

5. Blair reported that deaf children’s performance significantly surpassed that of
their hearing peers only on the knox cube test and the memory for designs test.
the experimenter taps a sequence on a set of four small cubes, and the
child attempts to reproduce the sequence.
• Knot cube test
involves a series of 13 individual geometric figures, each one viewed for
2 seconds before the subject is asked to draw it.
• Memory for designs test

6. Blair's findings on all four of the memory span tasks the hearing controls scored
significantly higher than the deaf students.
Blair argued that visual memory does not differ in deaf (compared to hearing)
children, but that deaf children are inferior on “abstract” or “conceptual” tasks.
Because he assumed that memory span “involves the mental integration of a
series of different yet related units into a meaningful sequence… so that the
sequence could be accurately reproduced… which is an abstract type of mental
process”, whereas the other tasks involved visual perceptual acts.

7. The children with hearing-impairment scores were significantly higher on the
non-word recall task than the "real" word recall task.
They also exhibited significantly higher scores on visual working memory
than those of the age-matched sample from the standardized memory
assessment.
Deaf children are good at:

8. What affects the performance of the deaf ?
What mainly affects the performance of the deaf with respect to normal
hearing children is the type of task employed in the visual memory studies.
Difficulties for subjects who are deaf or hard of hearing often arise with
stimuli that promote verbal coding of information, which can include
nameable objects, numbers and tasks requiring serial order memory

9. On a test of visual memory requiring subjects to draw one or more geometric
figures from memory, found no main effect or interaction between children who
were deaf or hard of hearing and those with typical hearing.
In contrast, when these same subjects were shown cards displaying a sequence of
digits—stimuli which lend themselves to verbal coding—and then required to
reproduce the sequence on a piece of paper, the results revealed a significantly
shorter memory span by the deaf or hard of hearing subjects.
Parasnis (1996):

10. Results from these studies point to a possible failure to employ a verbal rehearsal
strategy to aid the memory process.
the nature of visual stimuli seemed to affect performance by subjects who were deaf or
hard of hearing, with verbal stimuli being remembered less readily.
Similar results emerged in a study of adults who were deaf and who had typical hearing,
all of whom were fluent users of Australian Sign Language. The group with typical
hearing performed significantly better on both free and serial recall tasks with verbal
stimuli presented as written words or signs.
Australian Study:

11. Result: Since the stimulus items could readily be coded as verbal
representations in memory, it is likely that the group with typical hearing
employed a speech-based rehearsal strategy.
Assessed short-term memory abilities along with receptive language abilities of
cochlear implant users and found that children using cochlear implants performed
more poorly than typically hearing peers on a picture sequence memory (leads
to verbal coding) task but not on a visual memory task requiring the imitation
of hand movements.
Dawson (2002):

12. Deaf
Linguistic deficiency
Poorer performance by subjects
who were deaf or hard of hearing
on sequential sequencing tasks.
Normal hearing
Normal development of
language development
More experience with
sequentially presented materials
Better performance on the
successive sequencing task.

13. Results: enhanced memory performance for shapes in signers results from visual skills acquired
through sign language use and deafness, irrespective of language background, leads to the use of
a visually based strategy for memory of difficult-to-describe items.
40 Deaf
Signers Non- signers
51 Hearing
Signers Non- signers
Visual memory for shapes: in deaf (signers and non-signers)
& hearing (signers and non-signers).
Signing individuals were more accurate than non signing at memorizing shapes

14. In Conclusion:
a. Blair: deaf children are good at tasks that involve visual perceptual acts whereas they are
relatively weak in memory span that involve abstract type of mental process.
b. The deaf are better at: visual working memory and non-word recall
c. Parasnis (1996): Stimuli that promote verbal coding of affects the performance of the deaf
negatively
d. Australian Study: Normal people verbal-rehearsal strategy to aid the memory process (deaf
fail to do it)
e. Dawson (2002): typical hearing employed a speech-based rehearsal strategy to aid the memory
process.
f. Sign language leads leads to the use of a visually based strategy for memory of difficult-to-
describe items.

15. References:
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17201534
• http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1958-01952-001
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24803399
• http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0887617707000200
• http://trace.wisc.edu/docs/population/populat.htm
• Washington University in St. Louis Washington University Open Scholarship,
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, January 2011 The Effects of Visuospatial
Sequence Training with Children who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing.