The Effect of Graphic Symbol Learning Environments On Verbal Problem Solving Skills Of Hearing-Impaired Students

Abstract

Alternative communication means based on graphs such as photos, drawings and picture symbols could be used effectively for hearing- impaired people, but the literature provides few of such examples. Present study investigates the effectiveness of graphic symbol learning environments in problem solving skills of 4 hearing impaired students at elementary 3rd grade. The researchers made a problem pool of 22 items on add subtract. 5 of the problems were selected from the pool to give the students a test. In this way, the participants’ verbal problem solving skills in add subtract were defined in pre- test. Next, the problems were presented in graphic symbols. Each of the sentences in presentations was converted into graphic symbol sentences. It was followed by reading and understanding the problem, discussing given values, students’ noting the problem statement on notebooks (including graphic sentences of the verbal problem only), and the teacher/student solved the problem on the whiteboard. In the end of the practices, the pre test verbal problem was given again after modifying the numbers. It was found in pre tests that the students added all of the numbers in a column. On the contrary, the participants could determine which steps they should do subsequently for each problem in the post test