Visual Calculation Processes
in Finnish Sign Language
Marja Huovila, Päivi Rainò & Irja Seilola
0011 0010 1010 1101 0001 0100 1011
1
2
DEAFVOC - Conference on Deaf education with a special
focus on vocational education
Klagenfurt 19.11.2010
4
Research results1
0011 0010 1010 1101 0001 0100 1011
Blatto-Vallee, Kelly & Gaustad & al. 2007: Visual-Spatial
Representation in Mathematical Problem Solving by Deaf
and Hearing Students. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf
Education 12: 4, 2007.
1
2
” - - hearing subject’s performance on the mathematical
problem-sovling task was consistently higher than their deaf
peers accross all educational levels. The deaf baccalaureate
students exhibited the highest performance of all the deaf
participants but only performed at the level of the hearing
middle school students who were the lowest scoring hearing
group.”
4
Research results2
0011 0010 1010 1101 0001 0100 1011
Nunes & Bryant & Burman et al.: Deaf Children’s
Understanding of Inverse Relations. In Deaf Cognition.
Foundations and Outcomes. Eds. Marc Marschark and Peter
C. Hauser
1
2
”The deaf children found it relatively difficult to use the
inversion principle. Their scores in the basic inversion
problems were significantly lower than those of a
comparable gorup of hearing children. - -Deaf children’s
entry into school is delayed.- - The intervention group outperformed a control group both in an immediate post-test of
the understanding of the logical principles and, about 1 year
later, in the government administereed mathematics
achievement tests.”
4
Research results3
0011 0010
1101R.
0001
0100
1011Learners
Kelly1010
Ronald
2008:
Deaf
and Mathematical
Problem Solving.In Deaf Cognition. Foundations and
Outcomes. Eds. Marc Marschark and Peter C. Hauser.
” - - deaf students’ English and reading skills, as well as their
knowledge of mathematics and science, suggest that they are
considerably under-prepared for advanced studies at the
postsecondary level. At entry to college, only about 20 % of
deaf students meet or exceed the college readiness
benchmarks for English and reading. For science reasoning
and mathematics, only 10-15 % meet or exceed c.r.b.
> More emphasis on analytical strategies
> instruction how to graphically create visual-spatial
representations that show numerical relationships
> emphasizing reading precision
1
2
4
Research results4
0011 0010 1010 1101 0001 0100 1011
• Lang & Pagliaro 2007: Factors Predicting Recall of
Mathematics Terms by Deaf Students: Implications for
Teaching. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 12:
4, 2007.
• ” Various studies have indicated that the way teachers sign
techical content have the potential to influence learning by
deaf students. - - High signability terms are easier to recall
than low signability terms. - - We recommend more
research to examine how imagery may be promoted
through the use visual materials, especially when
unfamiliar and abstract terms and concepts are being
taught - - The potential of sign language to enhance
visualization skills should also be explored.”
1
2
4
”Always start adding
with the units first”
0011 0010 1010 1101 0001 0100 1011
1
2
4
Learning difficulties or
cultural ~ linguistic constraint?
0011 0010 1010 1101 0001 0100 1011
1
2
4
Learning difficulties or
cultural ~ linguistic constraint?
0011 0010 1010 1101 0001 0100 1011
Hearing & Finnish culture
Deaf Culture & FinSL
Mental arithmetic
Visual arithmetic
Use of fingers shun
during calculation processes
Use of fingers
- visualizing numbers
- when counting
- during calculation processes
= > visual abacus
1
2
4
Didactical instructions:
Calculation starts from ”right to left”,
” When writing down sums, separate
from biggest numbers to smallest; units
the numbers into units, tens, hundreds last.
and thousands. List the numbers in a
column and always start adding with the
units first.”
0011 0010 1010 1101 0001 0100 1011
1
2
4
Finger Symbols from Pacioli's Summa Arithmetica,
Middle ages Venice 1494
Didactical sign vocabularies
vs. idiomatic SL
0011 0010 1010 1101 0001 0100 1011
1
2
4
Collection of calculation
monologues & dialogues in FinSL
0011 0010 1010 1101 0001 0100 1011
1
2
4
Collection of
tutoring dialogues in FinSL
0011 0010 1010 1101 0001 0100 1011
1
2
4
Collection of interpreted
tutoring dialogues
0011 0010 1010 1101 0001 0100 1011
1
2
4
Visual mathematics in web:
www.osata.net
0011 0010 1010 1101 0001 0100 1011
1
2
4
Visual mathematics: Courses and
0011 0010 1010 1101 0001 0100 1011
signed material for SL interpreters
1
2
4