Chapter 11 Learners Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing
11.1 Multiple-Choice Questions
1) From the physiological perspective, the distinction between “deaf” and “hard of
hearing” is based on
A) decibels levels detected.
B) frequency of sounds detected.
C) location of hearing loss.
D) language ability.
Praxis: I.A.
CEC: CC1K1
2) From an educational point of view, how is “deafness” best defined?
A) a condition present since birth
B) an inability to understand speech even with a hearing aid
C) a hearing loss of more than 90 dB in at least one ear
D) a condition of old age
Praxis: I.A.
CEC: CC1K1
3) The term “hard of hearing” is used to describe people with hearing impairment who
A) were not born deaf but became deaf later in life.
B) have a mild hearing loss.
C) have a conductive hearing loss.
D) have enough residual hearing to process sound with a hearing aid.
Praxis: I.C.
CEC: CC1K5
4) Simon has a hearing loss that occurred when he was seven years old. His loss is best
described as
A) conductive.
B) sensorineural.
C) congenital.
D) postlingual.
Praxis: I.C.
CEC: CC1K5
5) According to the U.S. Department of Education, what percentage of students are
identified as deaf or hard of hearing?
A) 14%
B) 0.14%
C) 1.4%
D) 0.014%
Praxis: I.C.
CEC: CC1K5
6) People who say that deafness should not be considered a disability argue that
A) there is a difference between prelingual and postlingual deafness.
B) they should be considered a cultural minority with a language of their own.
C) there are advantages to being deaf, so it is not a disability.
D) although deafness is a handicap, it is not a disability.
Praxis: II.B.
CEC: CC3K4
7) The ossicles function to create
A) increased sense of balance.
B) electrical impulse being sent to the brain.
C) transfer of energy from the middle to the inner ear.
D) movement of the stapes.
Praxis: I.B.
CEC: CC2K1
8) The most important organ for hearing is the
A) cerumen.
B) tympanic membrane.
C) vestibular mechanism.
D) cochlea.
Praxis: I.B.
CEC: CC2K1
9) Ideally, screening tests for babies should follow a
A) 2–4–6 month rule
B) 1–3–6 month rule
C) 2–4–6 week rule
D) 1–3–6 week rule
Praxis: III.C.
CEC: CC8K3
10) Pure-tone audiometry establishes
A) detection and understanding of speech.
B) threshold for hearing at various frequencies.
C) kinds of hearing tests to be used.
D) presence of the Moro reflex.
Praxis: III.C.
CEC: CC8K4
11) Most speech sounds have frequencies (pitch) in the range of
A) 50–500 Hz.
B) 100–900 Hz.
C) 250–1,000 Hz.
D) 500-2,000 Hz.
Praxis: III.C.
CEC: CC8S3
12) The “speech reception threshold” is best defined as the
A) dB level at which one can understand speech.
B) intensity and frequency of spoken English.
C) Hz level at which the average person can detect sound.
D) level at which the human ear can discriminate between similar sounds.
Praxis: III.C.
CEC: CC8K1
13) When testing the hearing of a two-year-old child, an audiologist should avoid use of
which type of audiometry?
A) brain-stem-evoked response
B) speech
C) tympanometry
D) conditioned play
Praxis: III.C.
CEC: CC8K4
14) All of the following identify the location of hearing loss EXCEPT
A) conductive.
B) mixed.
C) sensorineural.
D) adventitious.
Praxis: I.C.
CEC: CC2K1
15) A condition in which the external auditory canal does not form is
A) atresia
B) otitis
C) anoxia
D) atrium
Praxis: I.C.
CEC: CC2K1
16) Which one of the following interferes with the functioning of the outer ear?
A) mumps
B) swimmer’s ear
C) allergies
D) perforation of the eardrum
Praxis: I.C.
CEC: CC2K1
17) The most severe hearing impairments are associated with which part of the ear?
A) middle ear
B) eardrum
C) inner ear
D) outer ear
Praxis: I.C.
CEC: CC2K1
18) All of the following are problems associated with inner ear hearing loss EXCEPT
A) sound distortion.
B) balance problems.
C) ringing noises.
D) draining fluid.
Praxis: I.C.
CEC: CC2K1
19) The most frequent viral cause of deafness in newborns is
A) otitis media.
B) maternal rubella.
C) congenital herpes.
D) congenital cytomegalovirus.
Praxis: I.C.
CEC: CC2K1
20) Joanne is a nine-year-old girl with a hearing loss. She can hear loud voices if they are
within a foot of her ear and can hear environmental sounds, though she usually can’t
identify them. What degree of hearing loss does Joanne appear to have?
A) mild
B) marked
C) severe
D) extreme
Praxis: I.C.
CEC: CC1K5
21) Signs in American Sign Language consist of each of the following EXCEPT
A) handshape.
B) location.
C) intensity.
D) movement.
Praxis: I.B.
CEC: CC6K2
22) Each of the following is true about sign language EXCEPT
A) It is a primitive, visual representation of oral language similar to mime.
B) It has grammatical structure at the sentence level and the word level.
C) There is no universal sign language.
D) Twins who are born deaf develop a signing system, but it is rudimentary and
less sophisticated than ASL.
Praxis: I.C.
CEC: CC1K1
23) Each of the following is true about individuals with hearing loss EXCEPT
A) They reach the same language development milestones in sign as children
without hearing loss do in spoken language, but at a slower rate.
B) They reach the same language development milestones in sign at the same
time as children without hearing loss do in spoken language.
C) They are at a distinct disadvantage regarding acquisition of spoken language.
D) They are at a distinct disadvantage regarding acquisition of English language
comprehension.
Praxis: I.B.
CEC: CC6K1
24) When performance tests, rather than verbal tests, are used,
A) the IQ scores of both those who are hearing and those who are deaf are lower.
B) the IQ scores of those who are deaf are lower than those who are hearing.
C) the IQ scores of those who are deaf are higher than those who are hearing.
D) there is no difference in IQ between those who are deaf and those who are
hearing.
Praxis: I.B.
CEC: CC8K4
25) Which academic area is most affected by deafness?
A) spelling
B) writing
C) reading
D) math
Praxis: I.B.
CEC: CC2K2
26) Among students who are deaf, those who achieve the highest levels of literacy tend to
have
A) hearing parents who teach them how to speak.
B) parents who are deaf who teach them ASL.
C) brothers and sisters who are hearing.
D) parents who communicate with them using both ASL and speech.
Praxis: I.B.
CEC: CC6K1
27) The two factors that seem to have a positive effect on social adjustment are
A) more inclusion with hearing peers and having parents who hear
B) more inclusion with hearing peers and having parents who are deaf
C) less inclusion with hearing peers and having parents who hear
D) less inclusion with hearing peers and having parents who are deaf
Praxis: I.B.
CEC: CC3K1
28) All of the following factors identify the Deaf community as a true culture EXCEPT
A) voluntary organizational networks such as National Theater of the Deaf.
B) historical awareness documenting people and events significant to deafness.
C) predominant pattern of intermarriage with people outside of the Deaf
community.
D) well-established behavioral guidelines with regard to such things as eye
contact and physical touching.
Praxis: II.B.
CEC: CC6K2
29) Whether a person thinks of himself or herself as deaf is referred to as
A) behavioral deafness.
B) vestibular deafness.
C) attitudinal deafness.
D) associative deafness.
Praxis: II.B.
CEC: CC3K3
30) A particularly controversial point of view held by many members of the Deaf culture
is that
A) children should not receive cochlear implants to improve their hearing.
B) parents should not permit children who are deaf to learn English.
C) all students who are deaf should attend residential schools until the age of 16.
D) all citizens should be required to learn American Sign Language.
Praxis: II.B.
CEC: CC3K3
31) The genetic engineering debate regarding Deaf activism refers to members of the
Deaf community who want to
A) eliminate embryos that do not have a gene associated with deafness
B) physically alter a gene to cause a baby to be deaf
C) eradicate deafness in vitro
D) deliberately increase their chances of having a deaf child
Praxis: I.C.
CEC: CC2K7
32) The auditory-verbal approach encourages children with hearing impairment to
A) depend on their peers for sound cues.
B) use their residual hearing.
C) learn sign language as quickly as possible.
D) focus on visual cues.
Praxis: III.E.
CEC: CC7K1
33) Teaching people with hearing impairments to use visual information (such as facial
expressions) to understand what is being said to them is
A) speechreading.
B) lipreading.
C) face reading.
D) gestural reading.
Praxis: III.E.
CEC: CC7K1
34) The total communication approach utilizes
A) Braille and manual communication.
B) sign language and a typewriter.
C) a telephone and a computer.
D) oral and manual communication.
Praxis: III.A.
CEC: CC6S1
35) Each of the following statements about signing English systems is true EXCEPT
A) They are the type of manualism most often used in total communication.
B) They follow the same word order as spoken English.
C) They include fingerspelling.
D) They are more fluent than ASL.
Praxis: III.A.
CEC: CC6S1
36) The rationale behind a bicultural-bilingual approach is
A) teaching the history of the Deaf culture instead of that of the dominant culture.
B) providing a foundation in spoken English to serve as a basis for ASL
C) providing a foundation in ASL to serve as a basis for learning English.
D) encouraging hearing people to learn ASL as a second language.
Praxis: II.B.
CEC: CC3K1
37) FM systems are used in conjunction with hearing aids to
A) amplify sound.
B) increase reverberation.
C) provide individualized instruction.
D) broadcast the schedule of daily events.
Praxis: III.E.
CEC: CC6S1
38) Virtually all new television programs are captioned for use by people with hearing
impairment. Federal law requires that TVs over 13 inches must
A) contain a chip that produces captions.
B) come with a decoder.
C) come with a VCR.
D) come with a teletypewriter.
Praxis: II.A.
CEC: CC6S1
39) A TT is a device for
A) decoding closed captions on TV.
B) accessing teletext service.
C) printing sign language texts.
D) communicating via telephone.
Praxis: III.E.
CEC: CC6K4
40) Currently, approximately what percentage of students with hearing impairments
attends their local schools?
A) 86%
B) 8%
C) 10%
D) 50%
Praxis: III.D.
CEC: CC1K5
41) In recent years, many parents and professionals have questioned the trend toward
inclusion of children with hearing impairment because
A) it creates too much work for the regular teacher.
B) they do not get along with the other students.
C) it reduces their opportunity to participate in the signing community.
D) they do not have the cognitive or academic skills to succeed in the mainstream.
Praxis: III.D.
CEC: CC3K4
42) Many in the Deaf community believe that residential schools for children who are
deaf are necessary to
A) perpetuate the Deaf culture and use of ASL.
B) ensure that students learn age-appropriate social skills.
C) provide the intensity of instruction needed to acquire life skills.
D) overcome the negative effects of many home situations.
Praxis: III.D.
CEC: CC3K4
43) Which statement about the assessment of progress of students who have hearing
impairments is true?
A) Curriculum-based measurement is not an appropriate method for measuring
reading fluency for these students.
B) Most standardized assessments are biased towards the majority culture.
C) Research does not support the development of phonics-based reading skills for
these students.
D) Several standardized measures of reading ability are available for these
students.
Praxis: III.C.
CEC: CC8K4
44) The focus of early intervention for children with hearing impairments is on
A) social skills.
B) language development.
C) play.
D) concept acquisition.
Praxis: III.A.
CEC: CC6K1
45) Children with deafness who have parents who are also deaf
A) develop language more slowly than do infants with deafness who have hearing
parents.
B) tend to be overly dependent on their parents when they reach school age.
C) develop ASL at a rate similar to the rate at which hearing infants develop
English.
D) have difficulty relating to hearing children when placed in mainstream
preschool settings.
Praxis: I.B.
CEC: CC6K1
46) Frank, who is deaf, is the six-month-old son of hearing parents. To interact
effectively with Frank, his parents should
A) emphasize lip movements.
B) encourage verbal babbling.
C) attend to eye gaze.
D) avoid use of speech.
Praxis: III.E.
CEC: CC6K1
47) Until the mid-1960s the only institution specifically for postsecondary education of
students with hearing impairments was
A) Rochester.
B) Gallaudet.
C) Stanford.
D) Georgetown.
Praxis: III.D.
CEC: CC3K2
48) A signing system that maintains the same word order as spoken English is
A) ASL.
B) fingerspelling.
C) transliteration.
D) English Sign Language (ESL).
Praxis: III.E.
CEC: CC6S2
49) National statistics indicate that 95 percent of adults who are deaf choose deaf
spouses. What percentage of the offspring from these marriages has normal hearing?
A) 10%
B) 5%
C) 50%
D) 90%
Praxis: I.B.
CEC: CC6K2
50) Students who are deaf who do not go on to postsecondary training may face increased
obstacles to employment in the future because
A) increasingly few employers are willing to employ workers who sign.
B) the manual trades that they typically prepare for are disappearing.
C) antidiscrimination laws do not cover students with inadequate training.
D) there will be increased competition for the same jobs by individuals with other
disabilities.
Praxis: III.D.
CEC: CC3K2
11.2 True/False Questions
1) Most people who are deaf have some residual hearing.
Praxis: I.B.
CEC: CC1K1
2) From an educational perspective, deafness is defined as a hearing loss of more than 90
dB in either ear.
Praxis: I.C.
CEC: CC1K5
3) A mutation in the connexin-26 gene is the most common cause of congenital deafness.
Praxis: I.C.
CEC: CC2K1
4) Children who are deaf reach language development milestones in sign later than
hearing children do in spoken language.
Praxis: I.B.
CEC: CC2K1
5) Intellectual development is dependent on the acquisition of spoken language.
Praxis: I.A.
CEC: CC1K1
6) When performance tests are used, there is no difference in IQ between those who are
deaf and those who are hearing.
Praxis: III.C.
CEC: CC8K4
7) Children who are deaf who have parents who are deaf have higher reading
achievement than those who have hearing parents.
Praxis: I.B.
CEC: CC6K1
8) Speechreading is used by the majority of people with hearing impairments.
Praxis: I.B.
CEC: CC6S1
9) Students with hearing loss are served in special schools or residential settings more
than any other disability category.
Praxis: III.D.
CEC: CC1K5
10) Most standardized assessments are biased against learners who are deaf or hard of
hearing.
Praxis: III.C.
CEC: CC8K4
11.3 Short Answer Questions
1) Describe the process of hearing within the context of the anatomy and physiology of
the ear.
Praxis: I.A.
CEC: CC2K1
2) Why are pure-tone audiometry and speech audiometry typically not used with very
young children or children with some disabilities?
Praxis: III.C.
CEC: CC8K4
3) Discuss the effects of hearing impairment on intellectual development and describe
recent changes in knowledge associated with this issue.
Praxis: I.B.
CEC: CC3K1
4) Identify and describe two factors that affect the social adjustment of individuals with
hearing impairment.
Praxis: II.B.
CEC: CC3K3
5) Describe four factors that demarcate the Deaf community as a true culture.
Praxis: II.B.
CEC: CC3K4
6) Describe advantages and disadvantages of the approaches to communication: oral
(auditory-verbal approach), total, or bicultural-bilingual.
Praxis: III.A.
CEC: CC7K1
7) Compare and contrast American Sign Language and signing English systems: As
communication systems, what features do they share? What are the relative
advantages and disadvantages of each for students with deafness?
Praxis: III.A.
CEC: CC3K5
8) There is considerable disagreement among professionals and parents with respect to
inclusion for students who are deaf. Describe two arguments against inclusion for
these students.
Praxis: III.D.
CEC: CC3K3
9) Why is language development so controversial for parents and professionals in early
intervention? Answer: They must make a decision regarding whether the English
language should be the focus of intervention efforts, or if ASL should be used starting
in infancy.
Praxis: III.A.
CEC: CC3K3
10) Describe the challenge faced by students with hearing impairment with respect to
postsecondary education and employment.
Praxis: III.D.
CEC: CC3K2
Chapter 11 Learners Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing
11.1 Multiple Choice Questions
11.2 True/False Questions
11.3 Short Answer Questions
