The Form Board Ability of Young Deaf and Hearing Children
By Rudolf Pintner and Donald G. Paterson, Ohio State University.
In October, 1914, the form board ability of the entering deaf pupils of the Ohio State School for the Deaf was measured and compared with that of the entering pupils in the first grade of a public school attended by hearing children from homes of laboring men. Twenty deaf children, aged seven, and twenty hearing children, aged six, were so tested. Again, in October, 1915, the same children Avere retested. Eighteen of the twenty deaf children were available, while only fourteen of the twenty hearing children could be located. The others had moved to other parts of the city. We have, then, the records for eighteen deaf children and fourteen hearing children on the Seguin Form Board, tested on entering school and again one year later. We also have the records for seventeen deaf children, aged seven, who entered school in September, 1915. The Form Board used was made from the description given by Sylvester,1 but it differs in this respect,?the insets fit in flush with the board proper. Hence, our results are not comparable with either the norms of Goddard2 or of Sylvester.3
We do not maintain that our modification of the form board is better or worse than the standard one in use. It requires a greater degree of muscular co-ordination to perform our test and therefore it is probably testing more factors than the standard board. At any rate the high correlations between performances separated by a year’s interval indicate the reliability of the board we used.
Each child was given three trials and the number of errors and the time required were recorded for each trial. The total and the average number of errors made on the three trials as well as the total and the average time for the three trials was then found. Error and time deviations were calculated and from these the average deviations for each group were derived. Each group of children was also arranged according to the relative position of each individual 1 R. H. Sylvester. The Form Board Test. The Psychological Review Monographs, Vol. XV, No. 4, Sept., 1913, pp. 1-56.
2H. H. Goddard. The Form Board as a Measure of Intellectual Development in Children. The Training School, Vol. IX, June, 1912, p. 4. 3 Op. tit., p. 48. (231)
within the group. From this the rank correlation between the first and second year standings in this test was obtained. The deaf children were shown the board with the holes empty. By motioning with the hand the experimenter indicated that a block was to be placed in each hole. The child then began the test. The situation was readily interpreted by the children and misunderstanding of the directions was a negligible factor. The hearing children were introduced to the tests by the verbal directions, “Put these blocks in their right places, as quickly as you can.” Results are given in tables I and II. Table I gives the average number of errors for each group. Table II presents the averaged time records. In table I the first column gives the age group tested, the second column the number of pupils tested; column three the average number of errors for the first trial; column four the average deviation in errors for the first trial, while the succeeding columns give similar data for the second and third trials. Column nine gives the average number of errors for all three trials and column ten those for one trial.
TABLE I. AVERAGE ERRORS. Age Group Num- Trial ber I Hearing age 6 14 2.9 14 1.2 , Deaf “7 18 18 17 3.4 1.2 Av. j Trial j Av. j Trial Dev. II Dev. Ill 2.6 3.0 2.5 1.5 Av. . of 3 Dev. Trials Av. 1.7 7.5 Av. of i Trial 2.5 0.9 1.4 1.3 0.8 0.9 3.3 i 3.1 0.9 ! 0.9 1.5 1.4 5.7 1.2 0.9 i 1.2 ; 1.0 1.0 3.0 1.1 1.9 1.0 1.3 1.0 1.0 0.8 1.0 1.0 3.G ! 1.2 ! I 1 ! I ! TABLE II. AVERAGE TIME. | Num Age Group ! bgr Trial I Av. Dev. Trial II Av. Trial Dev. Ill Av. Dev. Av. Av. of 3 of 1 Trials I Trial Av. Dev.for 1 Trial 16.6 Hearing age 6… j 14 71.1 23.4 61.1 23.8 47.0 8.3 179.7 7. .. 14 46.4 15.5 34.3 Deaf ” 7…! 18 72.9 20.9 50.3 8.2 31.9 5.8 10.2 50.1 12.7 ” 8… 18 39.4 ! 9.1 ! 29.4 5.3 ! ! j 1 ” 7… 17 49.7 9.9 42.6 8.2 27.6 5.1 40.4 10.9 112.6 173.3 96.4 134.8 59.9 37.5 8.7 57.7 12.2 32.1 44.9 5.9 8.8
Table II gives similar averages for the time records. An additional column gives the average deviation for one trial. We find by an analysis of table I that the seven-year-old deaf child makes more errors on the first trial than does the six-year-old hearing child but on the second and third trials the reverse is true. For all three trials the six-year-old hearing child makes more errors than the seven-year-old deaf child. With regard to time we see much the same thing in table II. However, the superiority of the deaf group over the hearing group is so slight as to warrant the statement that the seven-year-old deaf child of the entering class in 1914 is equal to the six-year-old hearing child or about one year retarded on this test.
Now considering the effect of a year’s development it seems that the deaf child has made a relatively greater gain than the hearing child with respect to time but not with respect to errors. In table I we find that the hearing child made a gain of 56 per cent in the reduction of his errors for all three trials (a gain of from 7.5 in 1914 to 3.3 in 1915). Similarly the deaf child made a gain of 47 per cent (5.7 in 1914, and 3.0 in 1915). In table II in regard to time we find the reverse to be true. The hearing child made a gain of 32 percent (from 179.7 [av. time for three trials]to 112.6). The deaf child gained 44 per cent (from 173.3 to 96.4). The results seem to indicate that the year’s growth had a slightly greater effect in increasing the form board ability of the deaf child than of the hearing child. The average deviations in time for one trial are also smaller for the deaf child than for the hearing child. This means that the deaf children tended to cluster around the mean more closely than did the hearing children. In other words the deaf children tested were more homogeneous in form board ability than the hearing children. The deaf children aged eight are, however, still backward. The deaf children aged seven who were tested for the first time in October, 1915 (shown on the last line of table II), seem to be superior to those who entered the previous year. This is significant and indicates the value of annual testings. Each annual testing of the entering class would in time give valuable norms which could well be used in determining the educational prospects for a given class. Some classes might need radical classification into groups while others might progress as a unit.
The Spearman Correlation “Foot-Rule” or R-Method4 was used in determining the degree of correlation existing between ranks on the test in the first year and the ranks in the second year. For 4 G. M. Whipple. Manual of Mental and Physical Tests. Baltimore: Warwick and York, 1914. Part I, pp. 42-43.
FORM BOARD ABILITY. 237 the deaf children the Spearman R value was .44 which equals Pearson’s r value of .64.5 This r value is eight times the P. E.,6 which makes the correlation reliable. For the hearing children a still higher correlation was found. The Spearman R was .68 which corresponds to the Pearson r value of .88 with a P. E. of .0486. The Pearson r is 18 times the P. E. and thus indicates a very reliable correlation. These correlation values reassure us as to the validity of the test, for they indicate that although all the pupils gained greatly from one testing to the other, yet they maintained their relative ranks. In other words those relative ranks are not due to chance but to some native ability which is more or less permanent. The correlation for the deaf children is lower than that for the hearing children because one child made a tremendous gain. This gain was probably due to some physiological change in the growth of that child’s nervous system, for the teacher reports that his whole manner and attitude seemed to change suddenly, his arm and leg movements seemed to become more nicely co-ordinated and he has made progress out of all proportion to the rest of the children. Summary.
The results of this paper seem to indicate that the average entering class of deaf children is apt to be about a year backward in form board ability and that this backwardness is not made up during the first year in school. Further, the ability of the entering classes varies to a considerable extent, indicating probably the need of adjusting the educational program to the ability of the particular class. The results point to the desirability of establishing norms for various tests, so that entering classes can be better understood, in so far as the mental ability of an individual or group determines the extent to which an educational program can go in modifying and moulding its materials. 5 Ibid., p. 44. 6 Ibid., p. 40.
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