Short-term memory in deaf children in relation to verbal and dactylo-kinesthetic encoding

The present study addressed the question, "To what extent does nonstrategic verbal encoding differ in deaf and normally hearing children?" With the use of a probe-type serial memory task, hearing and deaf children matched on chronological age, IQ, and sex were randomly assigned to named, unnamed, or dactylo-kinesthetic (fingerspelled) stimulus pretraining conditions and compared on subsequent serial recall performance. Strong primacy effects were found even though children could not use overt cumulative rehearsal. Analysis of d' scores found no difference between hearing or deaf children on pretrained named instruction; overall inferior recall occurred for deaf children on unnamed condition. Results were interpreted in terms of comparable nonstrategic processes in deaf children that occur prior to the application of mnemonic strategies.