Comparison of deaf and hearing children on measures of selective attention in two age groups

The Stroop and Posner tasks, used as measures of expressive and receptive attention, were administered to two age groups of deaf and hearing children. The purpose was to determine if developmental age would affect subjects' performance and to compare performance of the deaf with hearing subjects. The mean age for the younger deaf subjects was 9.9 years and the younger hearing subjects was 9.4 years. The mean age for the older deaf and hearing subjects was 13.7 years each. The results revealed higher interference in the Stroop tasks for the younger deaf and hearing groups than for the older groups. There were no significant differences between deaf and hearing subjects' performance on the Stroop and Posner tasks when they were of similar age. The results indicate that the deaf had no difficulty compared to the hearing in either aspect of selective attention. It is suggested that separate norms for the Stroop and Posner tasks be developed based on developmental age.