Applicability of a Standardized Personality Test to a Hearing-Impaired Population

Abstract

Scores made by deaf children aged 11 to 16 years on the California Test of Personality were poorer than the published norms established on hearing children. This test is an inventory devised to measure aspects of personal adjustment (eg. self reliance, feeling of belonging, nervous symptoms) and social adjustment (eg. social standards, family relations, social skills). For certain clusters of items, girls' scores were higher than boys', day pupils higher than residential pupils, and older children higher than younger. In this sample, hearing level and reading achievement were not related to personality test scores.

When applicability of the test to the deaf population was examined, results showed that: some items contained words which were unfamiliar to some of the children; some sentence structures were misinterpreted by some children; and the content of a few questions was inappropriate for deaf children. However, these items were not sufficiently numerous to account for the poor test performance of the group as a whole.

It was concluded that in its present standardized form this test would be useful for comparing a deaf child with the normally hearing population, but that in order to compare a deaf child with a deaf population, revision of certain items and restandardization of test norms would be appropriate.

Résumé

L'enfant sourd de 11 à 16 ans réalise des scores plus bas que l'enfant entendant au ←California Test→ de personnalité. Ce test comporte un questionnaire destiné à cerner les aspects de l'équilibre personnel et de l'adaptation sociale. Pour certaines questions, les scores des filles sont plus élevés que ceux des garçons, ceux des externes que ceux des internes et ceux des enfants plus aˇgés que ceux des enfants plus jeunes. Dans notre échantillon les scores obtenus étaient indépendants du seuil auditif et du niveau d'acquisition de la lecture.

L'emploi de ce test pour l'enfant sourd permet de conclure que dans sa forme normalisée ce test pourrait ětre utilisé pour comparer l'enfant sourd avec l'enfant entendant.

Si une comparaison devait ětre tentée entre les scores obtenus chez les enfants sourds, il serait nécessaire d'apporter une modification à certaines questions et de réaliser un nouvel étalonnage.