Study On Central Executive Function In Children With Hearing Impairment

As the executive system of working memory,the central executive function is responsible for the management,integration and coordination of various subsystems in the whole process of working memory operation.Central executive function plays a very important role in many advanced and complex cognitive tasks and is considered as the core of working memory.Central executive function plays a very important role in individual language,behavior,cognition,social emotion and social adaptation.The impairment of central executive function affects individual development in many aspects.Hearing-impaired children are an important group of the disabled in China.Research on central executive function of hearing-impaired children needs to be strengthened.Whether the central executive function of hearing-impaired children is impaired or not has not been concluded.The manifestations of central executive function in hearing-impaired children need to be confirmed by further research.Based on the three-component model of central executive function updating,inhibition and shifting proposed by Miyake et al.(2000),this study explored the characteristics of central executive function in hearing-impaired children through three comparative experiments on updating,inhibition and shifting between 30 hearing-impaired children and 30 hearing-healthy children.In experiment 1,the Digital running memory task was used,and the mixed experiment design of 2(type of subjects)×3(updating times)was adopted.The characteristics of updating function of hearing-impaired children were explored by comparing the accuracy and response time of the Digital running memory task between hearing-impaired children and hearing-healthy children.In experiment 2,the Magnitude-size Stroop task was used,and the mixed experimental design of 2(type of subjects)×3(type of inhibition)was adopted.The characteristics of inhibition function of hearing-impaired children were explored by comparing the accuracy and response time of Magnitude-size Stroop task between hearingimpaired children and hearing-healthy children.In experiment 3,the Local-global task was used,and the mixed experimental design of 2(type of subjects)×3(type of shifting)was adopted.The characteristics of the shifting function of hearing-impaired children were explored by comparing the accuracy and response time of the Local-global task between hearing-impaired children and hearing-healthy children.This study draws the following conclusions:(1)The accuracy and response time of hearing-impaired children under different conditions of Digital running memory task were lower than hearing-healthy children.Updating function of hearing-impaired children is impaired.(2)The accuracy and response time of hearing-impaired children under different conditions of Magnitude-size Stroop task were lower than hearing-healthy children.Inhibition function of hearing-impaired children is impaired.(3)The accuracy and response time of hearing-impaired children under different conditions of Local-global task were lower than hearing-healthy children.Shifting function of hearing-impaired children is impaired.(4)The central executive function of hearing-impaired children lags behind that of hearing-healthy children.The central executive function of hearing-impaired children is impaired.