The Relationship between Spoken Language Ability and Intelligence Test Performance of Deaf Children and Adolescents

Abstract

For several decades the intellectual abilities of deaf children and adolescents, as measured by performance IQ, have been reported as comparable with those of hearing children and adolescents. Differences have been reported, however, on measures of verbal IQ, with deaf children and adolescents typically obtaining verbal IQ scores within the low average to well below average range. More recent studies of the intellectual abilities of deaf children and adolescents using the Wechsler scales, while supporting this finding, have not taken into consideration all subgroups within the deaf and adolescent population nor accounted for the degree of variability in their language abilities. The aim of t..