James.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.org (James Womack) (05/30/91)
Index Number: 15828 [This is from the Silent Talk Conference] For many Deaf people, when you give an IQ test, you are not testing what you might think you are. The test is in English to begin with. The Deaf person may have an educational, familial, and cultural background in which English was not naturally acquired or mastered. This is typical of many Deafies due to educational systems insisting on hearizing the Deaf via audition training whether they actually benefit sufficiently from it or not and ignoring the need to develop a first language on which to base the teaching of English as a second language. So what you get is a Deaf person without real mastery of English in most cases. Now your test is in english remember. So what is happening is that you are testing that person's ability (or inability) to decipher the language used in the test no matter what the content area is. despite the Deaf persons potential or exisiting cognitive abilities in a given area, they may not and often are not exhibited due to to the test being whatit is. May Deafies would not qualify for Mensa by default in this case. An interesting thing is that once during a SAT at school, I misunderstood my instructions. A group of "low verbal" Deaf kids were being tested in reading. I signed teh test instructions and the test stories and questions. For better than half the test I did this. It was brought ot my attention that this particular group taking this particular test was not to receive such a presentation of the test material. I stopped doing this immediately. The kids were anguished because of it. The complained that only when I signed did they understand what the test was all about. Out of curiosity, I looked at the test answers before and after my blunder. Many of the most "low verbal" students provided something like 78% accuracy on test answers for questions signed and dipped to something like 26% for the sections not signed. What does this prove? Well, beyond the fact that I need to be more careful about my instructions, it can mean many things. That the kids should be tested via ASL rather than English to get a real knowledge of their abilities. Or it might mean some else entirely. For me it was an astonishing experience. One that I hope to research some day. -- Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!300!14!James.Womack Internet: James.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.org
James.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.org (James Womack) (06/04/91)
Index Number: 15962 [This is from the Silent Talk Conference] Ann, as I have stated repeatedly, the average Deaf child is not going to master English until educators realize that that child must have an easily acquired first language in place f i r s t. ASL is for the American Deaf child the only one that is easily acquired. From there go to teach English as a second language and from thence all the other academics. -- Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!300!14!James.Womack Internet: James.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.org
Verna.Forristal@f71.n343.z1.fidonet.org (Verna Forristal) (06/04/91)
Index Number: 15966 [This is from the Silent Talk Conference] JW> Verna enjoyed your post too on Mensa. I replied to the earlier post from JW> Dennis to express my appreciation and clarify some things. Hope you JW> caught it. I did. I called national today and found that they accept the scores from the "Non-verbal intelligence test for deaf and hearing." This is apparently a test done in pictures instead of English. I am trying to get more info on it, and also see if they will allow someone to sign the standard Mensa test. I should have an answer in a couple of days. -- Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!343!71!Verna.Forristal Internet: Verna.Forristal@f71.n343.z1.fidonet.org
Tim.Smith@f429.n275.z1.fidonet.org (Tim Smith) (06/17/91)
Index Number: 16062 [This is from the Silent Talk Conference] Oh yes, they do need to learn English! BUT- not in place of ASL. An ASL student with an ENGLISH teacher that signs ASl learns English much better than a poor deaf kid dumped right into english. Would you force a china man to learn english through english, or would you teach english through his native language, the one that BEST suits him? Why not teach english through ASL? This hasn't hardly been tried yet. -- Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!275!429!Tim.Smith Internet: Tim.Smith@f429.n275.z1.fidonet.org
w.fisher@qut.edu.au (Bill Fisher) (06/22/91)
Index Number: 16340 I failed to post this a couple of weeks ago and am trying again. Hence it is a little out of date. In article <15966@handicap.news>, Verna.Forristal@f71.n343.z1.fidonet.org (Verna Forristal) writes: > Index Number: 15966 > > JW> Verna enjoyed your post too on Mensa. I replied to the earlier post from > JW> Dennis to express my appreciation and clarify some things. Hope you > JW> caught it. > > I did. I called national today and found that they accept the scores from > the "Non-verbal intelligence test for deaf and hearing." This is apparently a > test done in pictures instead of English. I am trying to get more info on it, > and also see if they will allow someone to sign the standard Mensa test. I > should have an answer in a couple of days. > I was interested to see this item. I missed the earlier ones as I have been away. We recently admitted a blind and deaf lady, Penny Harland, to Mensa using special tests. Mensa is very interested in admitting handicapped people. The ultimate authority on Mensa admission is our International Supervisory Psychologist and I know that testing handicapped people is a special interest of hers. I very much doubt that she would accept someone signing the standard Mensa Test as that would change the test conditions and hence undoubtedly destroy the standardisation of the test. However Mensa accepts any one of a large number of properly standardised tests and will accept certificates from properly qualified psychologists who have used such tests or have otherwise properly established that the candidate meets our entry citeria. Incidentally Penny Harland has recently acquired a computer, modem and InterNet address and learnt to use electronic mail although not yet News. She would welcome a note. Her InterNet address is Harland@qut.edu.au. Mine is W.Fisher@qut.edu.au. Bill Fisher Chairman Australian Mensa