Investigation of Prototype Theory in Hearing Impaired Students in Four categories: Home appliances, School Supplies, Vehicles, Toys

Background and Aim: According to the prototype theory, concepts are categorized in the categories of the prototype that have a significant role in the development of vocabulary Methods: This was a quantitative study and descriptive data analysis. Using available sampling method, ۶۰ third and fourth-grade hearing impaired students who attending special schools in Tehran were selected for this study. The field method (researcher-made questionnaire) was used for data collection and Excel and SPSS programs were used to analyze and describe the data. Results: The purpose of this study is to identify the prototypes of these four concrete categories (Home appliances, School Supplies, Vehicles, Toys) in hearing impaired students. Conclusion Results: The results of this study showed that television, books, cars and dolls are strong prototypes for the concrete categories of home appliances, school supplies, vehicles and toys in the hearing impaired student, respectively. Factors such as hearing aid, parental education, and use of speech therapy had no significant effect on pattern formation in these students (p> ۰.۰۰۵). Conclusion: If we want to improve disorders and enhance understanding and expression in these individuals, we must first need to find ways to identify their strengths and weaknesses, thus identifying how to categorize and form subjective prototypes of each category in the hearing impaired student can help to planning therapeutic and rehabilitation programs for them. Also, the results of such research can be used for the compilation of special textbooks for the deaf students and the methods of their teaching, because the differences in the prototypes mean the differences in the internal structure of the categories for different groups.

کلیدواژه ها:

Categorization ، Prototype ، Hearing Impaired Students