| The purpose of this study was to determine if Consistency of Mode of Communication (using one system of communication for 90% of a subject's life) and Age of subjects would in some way alter the performance of profoundly hearing-impaired children on Piagetian tasks of liquid, matter, weight, and volume.;Subjects were randomly selected from the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind and public schools within the state of Colorado. All subjects were profoundly hearing-impaired, had at least average intelligence, and no symptoms or history of emotional disturbance. They also had to pass a pretest for understanding of terms used within the experiment before qualifying to be a part of it. There were thirty-two subjects, ranging in age from seven to seventeen. Subjects were randomly assigned to Mode groups, Consistent or Inconsistent, and divided into four Age categories. Inconsistent communicators had more than one Mode of Communication for 90% of their lives.;Conventional instructions for administration of Piagetian conservation tasks were utilized with answers and explanations to tasks scored and analyzed separately. All tasks and trials of tasks were given in the same order. Interpreters were allowed to rephrase any question which was not understood by the subject.;A Mode of Communication x Age x Task design was used to analyze the current data. This five factor ANOVA analyzed Mode (Consistent vs. Inconsistent), Age (4 levels), Conservation Tasks (4), Response type (Answer vs. Explanation), and Item (nested within Task).;A highly significant main effect was found for Consistent MOC (p =.003). In addition, a significant main effect of Age was found on conservation (p =.018).;It was determined, in summary, that children who had a Consistent Mode of Communication background benefited more than their Inconsistent peers on performance on conservation tasks. This finding did not appear to be contingent on Task, Age, or Item of Task, but is one which existed across all of these variables. In addition, older subjects performed better, overall, on Piagetian conservation tasks. |
