Performance of Young Hearing-Impaired Children on a Test of Basic Concepts

Abstract

The Boehm Test of Basic Concepts was administered to 24 hard-of-hearing children and 24 normally hearing children, who ranged in age from six to eight years. The hearing-impaired children were enrolled at least part time in regular public school classrooms. Their responses were analyzed according to age level and degree of hearing loss and compared to norms for normal-hearing children. Results indicate significant differences in knowledge of the concepts tested between children with milder losses and those with moderately severe losses, but no significant differences between younger and older hearing-impaired children. Percentile rankings of raw scores revealed that 75% of the hard-of-hearing children scored at or below the 10th percentile when compared to norms for hearing children their age or younger. Item analysis of the responses indicated poorest performance on time concepts, followed by quantity, miscellaneous, and space concepts, in that order.