The Nature of Relationships between Mental Rotation, Math, and Language in Deaf Signers

Abstract

Three mental rotation tasks, the Card Rotation Task (CRT), the Vandenberg Mental Rotation Test (VMRT), and the Money Road-Map of Direction Sense (MRM), were administered to 60 deaf students from Gallaudet University to determine if mental rotation was predictive of scores on the ACT English or Math subtests. Other predictor variables, such as gender, age of language acquisition, and level of American Sign Language (ASL) fluency, were also investigated. Results indicated that the CRT, which measures two-dimensional (2-D) mental rotation, is predictive of both math and English on the ACT. The VMRT, which measures 3-D mental rotation, negatively predicted scores on the ACT English subtest. Gender was a significant predictor of ACT Math scores, with males outperforming females. Findings suggest that mental rotation is not explicitly a math skill for deaf signers and appears to play a unique role in mathematic and language processing that differs from that established in hearing samples. Post hoc analysis found that higher scores on the CRT and lower scores on the VMRT predicted performance on both the ACT English and ACT Mathematics subtests for females. Learning a language before the age of three and using sign language with a strong ASL grammatical structure were also significant predictors of ACT Math for the female subgroup. No significance was found for the male subgroup for either criterion variable. Results indicate that mental rotation strategy plays a role in performance on tests of English and math and does so for deaf males and deaf females differently. Limitations and implications of these findings are discussed. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone [phone]. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]