聋童执行功能发展：聋童与正常儿童的比较

利用标准Dimensional Change Card Sort任务(DCCS)，对76名智力正常的3~8岁聋童和78名3~5.5岁的正常儿童进行了对比测试，旨在考察聋童执行功能发展的年龄特征与发展水平。结果发现，3岁组的聋童和正常儿童在DCCS任务上的表现没有显著性差异，但正常儿童在4~4.5岁时进入一个迅速发展期，而聋童要在6岁时才有快速的发展，到7岁后才相当于正常儿童5岁的发展水平，大约滞后2年。研究认为，造成聋童执行功能发展滞后的原因主要有：（1）语言符号系统和聋童特有的符号系统之间可能存在的差异；（2）聋童可能存在计划和灵活性的缺陷；（3）聋童可能存在命名和标识策略上的困难和注意机制的缺陷。结合关于聋童心理理论发展滞后于正常儿童7年以上的报道，心理理论发展和执行功能发展在聋童身上表现出较大的不一致性。

The Development of Executive Function in Deaf Children:Comparing with Normal Children

Jackson had compared executive function(EF) of deaf children and that of normal children,and found that there was no difference between the two groups.However,it is known that language relates to the development of theory of mind and executive function.In the present study,we argued that Jackson's study had three problems: 1) there were 4 kinds of deaf children in that study,that is,these samples had no homogeneity;2) compared to the 4~7-year-old normal children,the age distance(4 years 10 months to 12 years 11 months) of the deaf children was so large that his study could not reveal the developmental feature of the executive function of deaf children;3) Jackson used the A-not-B task and its 3 modifications.The tasks were too simple to measure the development of executive function accurately. Our study improved on Jackson's by employing the standard Dimensional Change Cards Sorting(DCCS) task to test 76 3~8 year-old deaf children(whose intelligence was normal) of hearing parents and 78 3~5.5 year-old normal children to compare the development of executive function between these two groups.Thus,we were able to explore the characteristics of development of the executive function and the level of development of the deaf children. The results indicated that there was no significant difference between 3-year-old deaf children and 3-year-old normal children.Normal children developed rapidly during 4~4.5 years,whereas development accelerated after 6 years for the deaf children;the performance of 7-year-old deaf children was equivalent to that of 5-year-old hearing children.That is,deaf children were late by about 2 years in EF development in comparison to normal children.The developmental delay could be explained by three aspects: 1) there is a difference between the language symbol system and the special symbol system of the deaf;2) deaf children could have a deficit in planning and flexibility;3) deaf children could have difficulty in naming and labeling strategies,and have a deficit in the attention mechanism.Compared with previous research reports that found that the theory of mind in deaf children tended to develop 7 years later than normal children,the development of executive functioning is not consistent with development of theory of mind.