| This study was designed to compare the conservation abilities between hearing-impaired students and hearing students in Taiwan, R.O.C. Eighty hearing-impaired students drawn from a school for the deaf and 80 hearing students drawn from a public elementary school were the subjects of this study. They ranged in age from 9 to 12. There were 10 female students and 10 male students in each age level and group. The hearing-impaired subjects were prelingually and profoundly deaf without any other significant handicaps. They had hearing parents.;The conservation tasks involved number, liquid, weight, and volume. Each was presented using an attribute-specific instruction approach. The performance tests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children was used to evaluate the subjects' intelligence. The conservation tasks and the intelligence test were given to all subjects individually. A two-way (group and age) analysis of covariance, t-test, Newman-Keuls test, Chi-square analysis, and proportional analysis were used to analyze all the data gathered. The significant level was set at .05.;It was found that excluding the effect of intelligence and the formal educational background (grade), there were still significant differences in conservation abilities of number, liquid, weight, and volume between hearing-impaired and hearing groups from age 9 to 12. The hearing-impaired students did not demonstrate conservation abilities of number, liquid, weight, and volume from age 9 to 12. However, the hearing students increased their conservation ability of number at age 10 and their conservation abilities of liquid and volume at age 12. Also, they did not demonstrate the conservation ability of weight until age 12. The conservation ability of the hearing-impaired students lagged behind hearing students by at least three years. There were no significant differences in the types of justification given by both hearing-impaired and hearing conservers and non-conservers.;The results suggested that the curriculum design and teaching strategies for hearing-impaired students should be modified to an experiential based curriculum and to student-centered teaching. Further studies were recommended to comprehend the developmental conservation ability of hearing-impaired students. |
