Deaf Learners, Cognition of

Studies of Cognitive Functioning

The history of attitudes in the hearing world toward expectations for deaf persons’ cognitive development is varied and long. A look at the Old Testament reveals an admonishment to the Hebrews not to curse the deaf; the inference is that there would have been no need for such an admonishment if the hearing community had not exhibited a condescending attitude. Moving rapidly forward in time to classical Greek times, Aristotle is reported to have said that the ear is the organ of instruction; the inference is that if one could not hear, one could not be educated. Moving to Renaissance times, a breakthrough of sorts occurred—independently, some educators in several Western European countries in the 16th and 17th centuries were able to teach some deaf persons to speak (presumably through oral methods such as lipreading); at that time, the right conclusion was reached for the wrong reason—that if some deaf people could be taught to speak, then these individuals could be viewed as intelligent. This view toward deaf learners equated ability to speak and intelligence.

Moving still further forward into the early 20th century, some researchers reviewed the available information on the intelligence of deaf persons and, in spite of the sometimes-contradictory results, concluded that deaf children had inferior intelligence. In 1924–1925, the United States’ National Research Council reported that deaf people were between two and three years “retarded” in comparison to hearing persons in their response to the Pintner Non-Language Mental Test. In the 1950s, other researchers attributed a “concrete” nature to the intelligence of deaf persons, indicating that deafness restricts the learner to a world of “concrete objects and things.”

Finally, during the 1960s, forward progress was clear. Hans Furth, a highly regarded psychological researcher, concluded that the poorer performance of deaf persons on some cognitive tests could be explained either by a limited access to language experience (e.g., denied access to signing community) or by the features of those tests that favored hearing persons. Two significant reviews of studies then drew together the mounting evidence for the equality of deaf and hearing persons’ thinking processes.

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