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Differences in Spatial Cognition Between Deaf and Hearing Children
The same tests were also administered to adults in the United States with comparable results: "Again the deaf subjects were significantly better than the hearing … [suggesting] that the enhancement of spatial abilities seen in deaf children may have a lasting effect into adulthood" (Bellugi, O'Grady, Lillio-Martin, Hynes, Van Hoeck, and Corina, 1989). In addition to these tests, numerous other spatial tests have been used to compare the abilities of deaf and hearing children including copying geometric shapes, spatial construction, spatial organization, and facial discrimination. While the largest advantage seems to occur with recognizing and interpreting dynamic displays like the nonsense characters, the deaf subjects have also shown a consistent advantage on facial discrimination and spatial construction. In some of cases, "these younger deaf childen [ages 3 to 5] were scoring as high as hearing 6 year-olds" (Bellugi, O'Grady, Lillio-Martin, Hynes, Van Hoeck, and Corina, 1989). One particularly interesting case is that of facial discrimination. In one study, children matched images of a face from the front with views from differing perspectives and under varying amounts of light. Deaf children performed better than hearing children on these tests. While the use of spatial cognition is partially attributed to these increased ability to recognize faces in different situations, this difference is also affected by the "important role that facial expression plays in [American Sign Language] grammar" (Bellugi, O'Grady, Lillio-Martin, Hynes, Van Hoeck, and Corina, 1989). These results help to pinpoint the spatial skills learned in acquiring sign language. The question remains as to how these skills can be used to increase academic performance and understanding of deaf learners. Next Section: Potential Effects on Learning
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In
order to better understand how using sign language effects spatial
cognition, Ursula Bellugi compared the abilities of deaf children
using Chinese Sign Language and hearing children. In particular, she
focused on the ability to use spatial analysis to understand dynamic
displays. To test this, "sixty nonsense Chinese characters were
presented [individually] as rapidly moving patterns of light"
to the children with instructions to "watch each point-light
display and write down the character underlying the continuous flow
of movement." The deaf children were able to apply their enhanced
spatial capacities to this task and were consequently far better at
"[distinguishing] between the movements representing strokes
and transitional movements" and "[remembering] the sequence
and spatial arrangements" (Bellugi, Tzeng, Klima, and Folk, 1989).