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7INFLUENCE OF GENDER DIFFERENCES IN CHILDREN AND STUDENTS WITH HEARING DISORDERS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF SPEECHREADING SKILLS
Assist. Professor PhD Georgieva Diyana Bulgaria, Stara Zagora, Trakia University, Faculty of Education
Abstract. In the specialized literature the differential categorization of boys and girls is a universal phenomenon. In the current experiment the gender differences of the participants are viewed as a presumed factor, which to some extent influences the development of the skills for visual perception of other people's oral speech by children and students with hearing disorders. The article presents an analysis of the students' achievements, representatives of both genders, in relation to the decoding of optical codes of speech on different linguistic levels - isolated words belonging to different grammatical and semantic categories, sentences and connected text.
Keywords: speechreading skills, gender differences, oral speech, children and students with hearing disorders
In literary sources the results from the conducted research showing the relation of the gender to the level of speechreading skills formation is inconsistent. The tendency for higher achievements among girls is more frequently observed. Scrutinizing the question about the visual perception of speech, Taaffe discovered a relation between gender and the ability of visual perception and understanding of verbal information. Girls demonstrate from two to three times higher indices of perception of optical characteristics of words and sentences than boys. According to Maly the reason for the different skills in both genders is that the visual attention in women is focused on precise and detailed perception of each word, whereas men try to "capture" the main thought, the idea of the text, relying to a large extent on a logical guess and the combination of the words in different sequences and this way ignoring the details.
In order to study the speechreading skills of deaf individuals fitted with cochlear implants, an extended research has been carried out, which included about 100 adults with postlinguistic deafness (with different etiology and duration before having the cochlear implants), continuing for a period of 8 years after the placing of the electronic system (Rouger et al.), and the results from it, in relation to both genders, were quite interesting. During the period immediately after the fitting of the implants were found considerably higher results mostly among the women. This advantage in the numbers gradually decreased during later period after the implants (24 - 36 months) and for the next years the men and women became equal in their skills to perceive visual information from the lips and the face of the speaking person. And unlike the women who had reached their maximum level of performance before having the implants, the men demonstrated progress. The received results support the idea of the existence of different processes and strategies for the recovery of speech perception in both genders. Researchers define the improvement of the speechreading skills in men as a consequence of the inclusion of multisensory integration into perception. Data exist that the reorganization of the brain is closely related to visual-auditory associations (Doucet ME et al.). It is presumed that in deaf male individuals the progressive recovery of the auditory and visual-auditory understanding of speech after having the cochlear implants is an important factor for the decoding of verbal (oral) messages through the visual sensory channel. Newer studies involving magnetic resonance imaging show that women use a wider neural network in the visual perception of oral information than men, which explains their initial better results (Ruytjens et al.). Due to this reason the potential of the neural structures in females during the speechreading skills training is lower compared to the one in males.
On the whole, authors are united around the idea that applying better prognostic and integrative strategies in female representatives helps their adaptation to the limited or poor quality incoming audio signal (Balkanska, Popozlateva, Dionisieva). At the same time emerges the question to what extent these strategies can be efficient for males also, if suitable conditions for their realization are available. It is evident that the differences in the speechreading ability between the two genders are a fact, which should be analyzed thoroughly in order to possibly clarify factors which may aid a more optimal development of this ablity and to serve as a basis in training deaf individuals and ones with severe hearing loss.
In order to study the role of gender in the level of development of skills for optical characteristics of speech identification have been formed two groups of children and students with hearing disorders - 52 boys and 39 girls. 44 of them have a severe hearing loss and 47 are deaf. The students are between the ages of 6 to 12. In 59 of the participants the causes for the hearing loss are congenital, and in the rest 32 - postnatal. 50 students have had early diagnoses. The others have been
diagnosed during a later period of time. 79 students have electronic hearing devices. 25 of the participants in the research have cochlear implants and 54 use personal hearing aids. All of the studied children are integrated in mainstream educational structures.
The used tools are questionnaires, working protocols, picture test, linguistic material - model of real objects and speech situations which are very frequently used.
The experimental research consists of verbal stimuli in Bulgarian language, distributed into three modules: words (70), belonging to different semantic and grammatical categories; sentences (10) - declarative in their function in speech; two texts, one of which contains key moments from the semantic content of a familiar folk fairy tale and the other text is short and with unfamiliar content. The stimuli are presented through reading by the reasearcher with no access to the participants' auditory modality and only eyesight is used.
The verification of the decoding is realized the following way: In relation to the stimuli from the first two modules, students are instructed after reading of each following word and sentence by the experimenter, to point out from a set of 10 object and subject matter pictures this visual object with which they identify the visually perceived verbal stimulus. When showing the first text - stimulus, after verbalizing the isolated sentences in broken sequence, the participants are given the possibility to arrange in chronological order the situations illustrated on the pictures, so that they match the semantic content of the text. After the presentation of the second text in oral stimulus form, the students are required to illustrate a subject matter picture, with the aim to check the understanding of the general meaning of the text on one hand, and the perception of specific details, on the other.
On the basis of the conducted experimental research the following results were received:
A clear idea can be obtained from fig. 1 of the results of the researched representatives of both genders, received in relation to the first index - number of correctly perceived visual stimuli - words, distributed according to their semantic and grammatical attributes.
80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%
52
The average success rai^ noun from one semantic
group
-noun from different
semantic groups
-verb
39
adjective words opposites cardinal number ordinal number
male
female
Fig. 1. Comparative results from the number of the correct answers of the girls and the boys in the visual perception of the stimuli - words, differentiated according to their semantic and grammatical attributes
Immediately can be noticed in the figure that the researched individuals, classified by gender attribute, have shown equivalent performance in their skills in relation to the visual perception of numerals, where the highest result was registered (72%). Minimum differences to the advantage of the girls were found in the differentiation of the optical codes of the nouns belonging to the same semantic group (55 : 53%). The number of the positive responses in the category of the nouns from different semantic groups is also bigger among the boys than the girls (54 : 49%). A change in the ratio of the correct answers between the representatives of both genders is found in the research with verbs, where girls achieved better results in comparison to boys. (52 : 50%). Girls demonstrated higher achievements also in the category of the words having opposite meanings - 55%. Boys follow them at the very close distance of 2%. In the differentiation of the optical characteristics of the adjectives, a result was obtained that is again a priority for the participants in the experiment who are boys - 55%. Girls identified the visual images of 53% of the words designating attributes of objects. The content analysis of the differences shows that from the total of 55% visually identified words - stimuli, boys get ahead of girls by the very small 2% (56 - 54%).
The comparison of the standard deviations between the individuals, divided by gender shows certain context differences, which are not deemed to be significant. The established larger dispersion among boys, varying between 2.5 - 3.7 suggests a bigger deviation from the average values in comparison to girls. Larger differences of the standard deviation between both genders are found in the category of the numerals
On fig. 2 are shown the summarized results from the research of the number of the correctly perceived stimuli - words, sentences, text (Text 1, Text 2). To some extent they display the minimum differences in the speechreading skills of the representatives of both genders.
70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%
The average success rate
male
female
■ words
sentences
Text 1
Text 2
Fig. 2. Comparative results from the number of the correct answers of the girls and the boys in the visual perception of the stimuli - words, sentences,
text (Text 1, Text 2)
Girls are ahead of boys only at the total best indices of speechreading, demonstrated in Text 1, the difference is just the minimum 5% (66 - 61%). After ignoring the insignificant difference, it can be said that in the decoding of the text content through the perception of its optical codes, both groups of students skilfully take advantage of the previously known content, which allows them to recover the structure of the text by the visual characteristics of key words. In the perception of the rest of the stimuli the results are a little better again among the representatives of the male gender. This particularly applies to the visual identification of the sentences (55 - 51%). Taking into consideration the small difference in the visual perception of the lexical units (56 - 54%) can be inferred that the unity of content and form, existing in separate words is optically perceived and processed to approximately the same degree by the girls and the boys. In relation to Text 2, a large part of the visual information is equally inaccessible to the divided by gender attribute researched individuals, due to insufficiently developed anticipation ability.
On the whole, data confirm the tendency for differences between the two genders, which are not characterized by statistical significance. In comparison to the girls, the dispersion among the boys again has higher values (2.3 - 3.5), which means that there is a bigger deviation from the average values, typical for the group. This can be explained also with the influence of external factors, such as fatigue, the willingness of the children to participate in the research, their ambition to show better results, their predisposition towards the experimenter. Obviously the girls are more resistant to the effect of these influences. Their results are grouped around the average values in relation to all of the stimuli. Only in Text 1 stimulus have been established drawing nearer dispersions. The content of the texts has been studied and the students were familiar with it. This created confidence, due to which the representatives of both genders showed the objective state of their speechreading skills.
The preliminary expectations for the existence of better developed skills for visual perception of speech among the representatives of the female gender were not confirmed. The analysis of the average values by the preliminary specified methods of measuring the performance in the visual identification of the presented stimuli showed that, in the researched excerpt, this was not a common phenomenon. The results from the research indicate that the representatives of the male gender have better achievements at the identification of the optical characteristics of the speech. Nevertheless, the observed difference is not characterized by high degree of significance. The advantage of the boys in the speechreading skills over the girls is observed among all age groups in the research. Obviously, in the same conditions boys improve their skills for the differentiation of optical codes of speech faster
than girls. In a large number of articles scientific evidence is found that girls are in a better position regarding linguistic competency and reading abilities than boys. The speechreading skills are in direct relation to the mentioned competencies. Perhaps the achieved better results among the boys can be associated with other kinds of abilities, which are to the same extent connected to the skills for the visual perception of speech. Boys can use better the visual information, which is perceived not only from lips, but also from different facial zones of the interlocutor, i.e. they take better advantage of the dynamic expression of the face of the speaking person.
In the present research the differences between the achievements of the girls and the boys in speechreading are within the frames of the acceptable statistical error, which, about pedagogical characteristics, is assumed to be 5%. To summarize: the analysis of the results shows that gender differences do not have a significant impact on the achievements of the students, related to their speechreading skills. Undoubtedly, the gender factor can only conditionally be scrutinized independently. A strong influence and correlation with other factors is presumed, such as auditory status, age, time of hearing disorder occurrence, time and method of the fitting of the electronic hearing device and many others.
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