Discovery and expository methods in teaching visual consonant and word identification.

Area of Science:

• Speech and Hearing Sciences
• Cognitive Psychology
• Educational Psychology

Background:

• Lipreading, or speechreading, is a complex visual skill crucial for communication.
• Understanding optimal teaching methods for lipreading is essential for improving auditory rehabilitation.
• Previous research has explored various training techniques with varying success.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the efficacy of discovery learning versus expository learning for teaching lipreading skills.
• To assess the long-term retention of lipreading skills.
• To determine if training on basic speech elements (consonant-vowel syllables) transfers to more complex tasks (monosyllabic word identification).

Main Methods:

• Twenty-six college students with normal hearing were trained over 3 days using videotaped materials of four talkers.
• A forced-choice procedure with feedback was used for training consonant-vowel (CV) syllables.
• Retention was tested after 4 weeks, and word identification was assessed 3 weeks later using a 10-item forced-choice monosyllabic word task, compared to a control group.

Main Results:

• Subjects showed significant learning and retention of CV syllable lipreading over the 3-day training period.
• No significant difference was found between the discovery and expository learning methods for CV syllable training.
• Extensive CV syllable training did not lead to better performance on monosyllabic word identification compared to a control group with no prior training.

Conclusions:

• Both discovery and expository learning methods are equally effective for teaching basic lipreading (CV syllables).
• Learning basic lipreading units does not automatically transfer to improved performance on identifying real words.
• Further research is needed to develop effective strategies for improving lipreading skills for real-world communication.