Am Ann Deaf. 2000 Jul;145(3):286-91. doi: 10.1353/aad.2012.0102.

Improving flexible thinking in deaf and hard of hearing children with virtual reality technology.

American annals of the deaf

D Passig, S Eden

PMID: 10965592 DOI: 10.1353/aad.2012.0102

Abstract

The study investigated whether rotating three-dimensional (3-D) objects using virtual reality (VR) will affect flexible thinking in deaf and hard of hearing children. Deaf and hard of hearing subjects were distributed into experimental and control groups. The experimental group played virtual 3-D Tetris (a game using VR technology) individually, 15 minutes once weekly over 3 months. The control group played conventional two-dimensional (2-D) Tetris over the same period. Children with normal hearing participated as a second control group in order to establish whether deaf and hard of hearing children really are disadvantaged in flexible thinking. Before-and-after testing showed significantly improved flexible thinking in the experimental group; the deaf and hard of hearing control group showed no significant improvement. Also, before the experiment, the deaf and hard of hearing children scored lower in flexible thinking than the children with normal hearing. After the experiment, the difference between the experimental group and the control group of children with normal hearing was smaller.

MeSH terms

• Child
• Deafness*
• Female
• Humans
• Male
• Persons With Hearing Impairments*
• Technology*
• Thinking / physiology
• User-Computer Interface*

Publication Types

• Journal Article