SPECIFIC DIFFICULTIES ASSOCIATED WITH THE LEARNING OF MATHEMATICS BY STUDENTS WITH HEARING DISABILITY IN SOUTHWEST NIGERIA

Abstract

This study sought to identify some specific difficulties which students with hearing disability do encounter in learning mathematics. One hundred and eighty secondary school students with hearing disability were engaged as the study sample. They were purposively drawn from four special secondary schools in four southwestern states of Nigeria (Oyo, Ogun, Lagos and Ondo states). Four research questions were raised for the study to provide answers. The questions were on specific difficulties relating to the instructional language, mathematical concepts, calculation skills and spatial relation abilities. These are some difficulties often experienced by hearing-disabled students while learning mathematics. A researcher-made questionnaire was employed to gather the data. The data were analysed by a simple percentage statistics. Findings showed that the foremost difficulty experienced by the students with hearing disability in learning mathematics is the instructional language problem characterized by the inability of the sign language the speech substitute language used for teaching the same students) to effectively convey necessary mathematical concepts or processes to the students. Other difficulties include poor calculation skills, improper development o f mathematics concepts and poor understanding o f the mathematical place or spatial values. The paper therefore recommended that remedies should be sought through further research to ease the identified difficulties as a measure fo r improving the teaching and learning o f mathematics by students with hearing disability.