Mathematical vs. Reading and Writing Disabilities in Deaf Children: A Pilot Study on the Development of Numerical Knowledge

In the literature there is limited research on the interaction of language and arithmetic performance of deaf students, although previous studies have demonstrated that many of these students are delayed in both their language acquisition and arithmetic performance. The focus of the first part of this work is a brief review of the literature on acquisition of learning abilities in prelingually deaf children with hearing aids and cochlear implants. Children who experience severe to profound deafness early in their life have a better prognosis for normal literacy development than ever before. In fact, the restoration of the auditory threshold allows children to achieve language and learning abilities like normally hearing children. In the second part we describe our initial experiences in the field. We discuss some preliminary results of an investigation of the longitudinal development of cognitive abilities related to numerical cognition in hearing-impaired children who have had a hearing aid or a cochlear implant at a young age. Specifically, we analyse the development of numerical abilities related to verbal abilities (such as those implied in counting tasks), reading and writing numbers, and analogical numerical abilities (such as those based on quantity recognition as in number comparison and number seriation).