The Fast Mapping Abilities of Korean Hearing Impaired Children

Jung, Jong Min; Pae, So Yeong

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Commun Sci Disord. 2004;9(2): 49-64.

Jong Min Jung^` , and So Yeong Pae^`

정종민(Jong Min Jung)| 배소영(So Yeong Pae)

ABSTRACT

This study evaluated the fast mapping abilities of 17 children with hearing impairment and 16 normal children aged from 3 to 6 years old(Mean=4;6). After viewing 2 video tapes, each child heard novel words included in the stories and was asked to point to the scene that depicted a novel word. The findings indicated that there was a significant interaction effect between the word type and the group. Normal children fast mapped verbs as much, whereas the children with hearing impairment fast mapped verbs more than nouns In conclusion, Korean children with hearing impairment can fast map novel words with meanings although their performance was lower than that of the normal children. Interestingly, the hearing impaired children fast mapped verbs more than nouns. The position of Korean verbs at the end of the sentence, providing a better hearing condition, may explain the hearing impaired children’s precocious fast mapping abilities of verbs. Other variables such as cognition and syntax complexity need to be further studied.