Deaf Children, Special Needs, and Mathematics Learning

Characteristics

The aim of mathematics instruction in primary school is to provide a basis for thinking mathematically about the world. This is as basic a skill as literacy in today’s world. Mathematical knowledge is also a means to achieve better employment and to enter higher education. For all these reasons, it is of great importance that deaf children have adequate access to mathematical thinking, but unfortunately most deaf children show a severe delay in mathematics learning. This delay has been persistent over many years. The average score in mathematics achievement tests for deaf children in the age range 8–15 in a study carried out in 1965 showed that they were one standard deviation below the average for hearing children, a result replicated about three decades later. This means that about 50% of the deaf pupils perform similarly to the weakest 15% of the hearing pupils. Later results continue to confirm this weak performance. In the UK, deaf students aged 16–17 years, at the...