Publication Date

1967

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Williams, J. David

Degree Name

M.A. (Master of Arts)

Legacy Department

Department of Communication Disorders

LCSH

Deaf--Means of communication

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether visual closure, as measured by a mutilated word test, was related to lipreading ability. Lipreading ability was assessed with the Utley Lipreading Film, Form A, "How Well Do You Read Lips?" Visual closure ability was measured through the use of an adapted version of the word recognition subtest of the Multi-Aptitude Test. A control group of 30 freshman and sophomore college students with normal hearing was utilized. The experimental group consisted of 30 deaf and hard-of-hearing students enrolled in a residential program for hearing handicapped young adults at Northern Illinois University. The hearing impaired subjects had moderate to profound losses, a score of 90 or above on the Performance section of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, and had received formal lipreading training for a period of from 2 yo 6 years. The tests were administered at four different periods to groups of 15 subjects. A tachistoscope was utilized to project the visual closure test, and the lipreading film was shown by means of a 16 mm. film projector. The Pearson Product Moment Correlation was applied to determine the relationship between visual closure ability and lipreading ability. The findings of this study indicated that there was a statistically significant correlation between visual closure ability and lipreading ability (sentences and words)for both the hard-of-hearing subjects and the subjects with normal hearing. There appeared to be no significant difference between the two groups in visual closure performance or in lipreading performance. The results of this experiment appear to be significant enough to warrant further investigation of the relationship between visual closure and lipreading. Examination of speed of closure and flexibility of closure would be beneficial as a preliminary step in providing prognostic tools and visual training methods of lipreading instruction.

Comments

Includes bibliographical references (pages [54]-56)

Extent

vii, 56 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

Download

Share

COinS