People Hearing Without Listening 1978

7/30/2019 People Hearing Without Listening 1978

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" P e o p l e H e a r i n g Without Listening"Problems o f Auditory Processing i nt h e Classroom

The neglected language skill in English teaching islistening. It is easier to teach reading, writing, andspeech. This review of research on listening bears re-research and curricular implications.Reviewed by S.W.L.

KARL K. TAYLORIllinois Central CollegeIn 1964 Paul Simon wrote a popular song entitled "The Sound of Silence"from which the title of this paper comes. Although the song writer was ob-viously not concerned with auditory processing when he wrote those words,they do describe students who hear but who do not listen, who hear what issaid but who cannot completely comprehend the spoken word. Because manyteachers have been unaware of these difficulties, probably some of these stu-dents have incorrectly been diagnosed as intellectually deficient. For thatreason the purposes of this paper are to explain briefly the three types of audi-tory problems presently known, to break one of the three processing- intoits component parts, to describe some of its symptoms, and to summarize the

implications of this writer's review of the literature. Since much is still un-known, the reader should be aware that this paper is by no means a definitivestatement.TWO TYPES

OF AUDITORYDISORDER

If a person is believed to have an auditory problem, thetrained audiologist should evaluate the three basic elementsof hearing sensation, cognition, and perception- to deter-mine the source of the problem. Since the most commonauditory deficiency is with sensation (with acuity), the diagnostician evaluatesthe subject's physical capability of hearing. Tests for auditory sensitivity in-clude those for speech reception (the ability to repeat words which have beenspoken to the person being tested) and for pure tone. When the diagnosticiantests the ear's sensitivity to sound, he measures frequency and intensity. Fre-quency has to do with the number of vibrations which a sound produces persecond, while intensity refers to the amount of energy required to produce it.(Miller, 1951)

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62 RESEARCHIN THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH

Statistically, then, the person being examined is most likely to have a dis-order in this first element of hearing sensation. Roughly 45 percent of theindividuals, who are initially diagnosed as having hearing problems, fall intothis category of hearing loss or peripheral deafness (Myklebust, 1954). Accord-ing to a National Institutes of Health report entitled Human Communicationand Its Disorder- An Overview (1969), approximately 236,000 individuals inthe United States suffer from deafness, (p. 11) In addition many more haveless severe hearing loss:Thus, in summary, although contemporary data remain incomplete inimportant ways, it is reasonable to estimate that about 8,500,000 Americanshave auditory problems of one type or another which are less severe thandeafness but which impair communication and hence social efficiency. Themajority of these individuals are in the older age groups 17-44, 45-64, 65 yrs.and older, but about 4.5 percent (circa 360,000) are under 17 years, (p. 13)

Deafness or hearing loss has many causes, but only a few of the most commonare mentioned here because concentration on that area is not the purpose ofthis paper. Partial or complete hearing loss can be the result if these parts ofthe auditory system have been damaged or are defective from birth: the eardrum, the ossicles, the inner ear fluid, or the basilar membrane.Assuming that the audiologist has found no disorder in the structural func-tion of the ear and its various parts, he begins to explore the possibility thatfaulty cognition may be the cause of the subject's hearing problem. Cognitionis a global term about which we know little, but which is being explored byauthorities in a number of fields including medicine, psychology, and audiology.An explanation given here will be oversimplified because of the complexities in-volved and the insufficient knowledge available. Broadly speaking, however,people with hearing loss due to cognitive deficiencies have malfunctions some-where in the central nervous system, not in any part of the ear. These peoplehave brain damage which may have been the result of some type of birth defect,some problem associated with delivery (generally insufficient oxygen), sometype of accident involving an injury to the head, or some kind of cardio-vascular trouble related to a stroke. Often called aphasics, these people sufferfrom a wide range of difficulties from the mild to the severe. Aphasia ". . . isa disorder in symbolic behavior with inability to use speech (expressive aphasia)or inability to use language for any purpose (central aphasia)." (Myklebust, p.178) Since teachers are unlikely to encounter these disorders in the normalclassroom, they should be aware of their existence, but they should be moreconcerned about the third component of hearing auditory processing be-cause it is probably more subtle and more common in a typical population.

AUDITORYPROCESSING In the two types of auditory disorder discussed so far, theperson's communication skills are limited by one or morephysical deficiencies either in the ear (with all its parts) orin the central nervous system. In this third type- variously called auditoryprocessing, speech perception, and auditory perception- the cause of the prob-lem is by no means clearly understood or defined. Part of the difficulty in


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PEOPLE HEARING WITHOUT LISTENING 63

understanding he problem stems from its magnitude the problem may becaused by factors within the individualhimself and/or by factors within theindividual'senvironment.Another remarkablefeature which makes auditoryprocessingdifficult to understand s that it all takes places in the individualwithin a fraction of a second. In short, to determine the cause of auditoryprocessingdisorders, he evidence must be gatherednot only from within theindividual,but also from within his environment.Because of the great com-plexity involved, it is unclearwhether the problemstems from a physical ab-normality, rom poor transmission n a sender'spart,or from insufficient rain-ing in speechdecoding (or all three and maybe more), which will be discussedin more detail later.Someonehas said that students,sufferingfrom this third disorder,were firstdetected when teachersbegan sending them to an audiologistbecausethe stu-dents appearedto have acuity problems.After the students had successfullypassedtests for abnormalitiesof the ear and the central nervous system, theaudiologistcould not account for the students'continued problemswith lan-guage understanding, nd the teachers remainedconvinced that somethingwasstillwrong with the children'sacuity.Researchcontinues,but little is still known;JosephWepman (Rampp, 1972) has pointed out that only "sixty-threearticleswere publishedbetween 1960 and 1972 on auditoryperception."(p. 174)When one has a sense of the difficultyinvolved here, then perhapshe can

gain insight by reviewing some of the attemptsto define this third type ofauditorydisorder.J. J. O'Neill has summarized ome of these attempts:It [auditoryprocessing] asbeendefinedn such a way as to include hetransmissionf the signal romtheexternal ar to the auditory ortex.Othershavedefined he process o include he transmissionrom the cochlea o thecortex. . . The messagewill not be lost but processings less perfectandrefinedandas a resultredundancys loweredandintelligibility ets worse.(Singh,1975)

MildredBerry (Heasley, 1974) definesauditoryperceptionin this way: "It isa processby which one explainshow a child's nervoussystem learns to com-prehend and make use of auditory information."(p. 10) Myklebust (1954),over twenty years ago, helped distinguishbetween the various auditory dis-orders and in so doing defined auditory perception. "An auditory perceptualdisturbanceprecludesnormallisteningbehavior; he child can hearbut he can-not structure he auditoryworld and select those sounds which are immediatelypertinentto adjustment." p. 158)COMPONENTSOF AUDITORYPROCESSING

After reading the various definitions mentioned above,"auditoryprocessing"appears o be a more recent term forthe phenomenonpreviouslycalled"auditoryperception."Theterm hasprobablychangedbecause t is less global than "per-ception," and processing connotes several steps, stages or activities ratherthanjust one. If that reasoning s correct, the direction of the research n recentyears is reflected in the change of the term; researchershave been trying tobreak "perception"or "processing"nto its components.This direction seemslogical also,becausedefiningthe third auditory problemproperly must involve


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64 RESEARCHIN THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH

breaking it into its parts for any genuine understanding. In other words, graspingthe meaning of auditory processing is very difficult, using only the definitionscited above.As far as can be determined, the research has not been very systematic orsequential with various specialists detecting, testing, and verifying one or severalsteps in the process. (Wepman, Broadbent (1958), and Gibson (1969) are someof the prominent exceptions.) Instead, apparently too much of the work hascentered on developing tests which are supposed to isolate elements of process-ing, without adequate basic research on their validity, reliability or generalusefulness. However, these tests provide clues about the possible ingredients ofauditory processing.Bernice E. Heasley (1974) has compiled what she calls a taxonomy of audi-tory perception skills which she has probably gathered from the tests on themarket. Whether this list of thirteen items genuinely reflects a sequence orcontains all of the components is not known, but they do provide one withsome idea of the complexity of the processing task. When each element is dis-cussed, reference will be made to what other researchers have done in or witheach element.1. Awareness of sound 8. Sound sequencing ability2. Auditory attention 9. Auditory projection ability3. Auditory attention span 10. Auditory separation4. Localization of sound 11. Auditory blending5. Discrimination for sound 12. Auditory closure6. Auditory memory 13. Re-auditorization7. Auditory memory span (Heasley, p. 18)Awareness of

Sound andAttention

From the material reviewed by this writer, Heasley is theonly researcher who distinguished between "awareness ofsound" and "attention." She claims that awareness of soundis "the ability to recognize and respond to the presence orabsence of sound." (p. 19) She contends that "awareness" is related to the sub-ject's motivation to listen which seems to be closely connected to what othershave said about "attention," especially Broadbent. Further, she claims somechildren apparently lack an environment which develops their ability to besensitive to sound. References have been made in the literature that perhapssmall children are harmed by excessively noisy environments (Cohn, Glass, andSinger, 1973). However, the distinction which Heasley claims between "aware-ness" and "attention" seems too minute, then, to be significant. On the onehand, "the ability to recognize sound" seems related to acuity, while "the abilityto respond to the presence or absence of sound" appears related to attention.Therefore, on the basis of this writer's reading, Heasley's distinction seemsconfused or unnecessary.Most authorities recognize the elements of auditory attention and auditoryattention span. Heasley defines the former in this way: "Having received thesignal, the listener accepts responsibility for further processing of the stimulusby increased attention." (p. 20) Auditory attention span refers to occasionswhen the listener must attend to or listen for relatively long periods of time,according to Heasley: "the individual's ability to attend selectively for increased


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lengths of time to a task or series of tasks." (p. 21) For Chalfant et al. (1969)attention is concerned with "whether or not the child is attending to the stimuliwhich are being presented." (p. 11) To understand this element of processing,one might try visualizing a group of men (or women) about to begin the100-yard dash, their feet digging into the cinders of the track and their handssupporting their stooped bodies. If one of the runners is not paying attentionwhen the gun signals the beginning of the race, he is not likely to commencerunning at exactly the same moment as his competitors. "Attention" appears tobe an appropriate term until the listener must attend for some period of time.Long-term attention, studied by Broadbent (1958), is closely related to atten-tion, but he has called it "vigilance" probably because a length of time is in-volved. By whatever term the element is labeled, inattention can be related tomany factors:

(a) Low level or absence of hearing acuity; (b) distractibility involvingcompetitive visual or auditory stimuli; (c) hyperactive behavior; (d) severeemotional disturbance;or (e) inability to obtain meaning from auditorystimuli. (Chalfantand Scheffelin,p. 12)Probably every first-grader, who daydreams and who is shaken back to realityby his teacher, is reminded of the obvious importance of attention or vigilanceto education.

Localizationof Sound

Localization of sound, the fourth element in Heasley'shierarchy, is almost self-explanatory and is accepted by othersas a legitimate element. Most of the definitions are similar:"the ability to identify the direction from which a sound or series of soundsoriginated." (Heasley, p. 21) The inability to identify the source of soundsproperly might be illustrated by a youngster who, when about to cross thestreet, is unable to determine the direction of traffic noise around him. He hearssounds, but he is unable to determine auditorily whether the vehicle (or vehi-cles) is to his left, to his right, to his front, or to his rear. In this case, thisparticular skill is not extremely important as long as the child can and does

use his vision to detect the source of the sound. In education, sound localizationis probably not a vital skill.Discriminationfor Sound Heasley's

next element- discrimination for soundis de-fined in this way: "the ability to recognize and respond ap-propriately to similarities and differences in sound: pitch,loudness, rate or duration, and quality." (Heasley, p. 22) Apparently this prob-lem of discrimination is not unusual in children through the eighth year, asnoted by Chalfant and Scheffelin, Morency (1968), and Synder and Pope (1972).For the relationship between delayed maturation on later school achievement,see Morency and Wepman, 1973. If a child experiences sound discriminationdifficulties during those early years when he is learning to learn, one wonderswhat basic skills or information which the child does not acquire. Goldbergand Schiffman (1972) re-emphasize that idea with this statement: "Since only24% of children have accurate auditory discrimination by the end of the sec-ond grade, deficits in this area expose children to the risk of failure." (p. 100)


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66 RESEARCHIN THE TEACHING OF ENGLISHThe same authors point out that the problem is, of course, more serious thanconfusing words like ball and hall. Children must follow a rapid barrage ofwords and almost instantaneously extract meaning from the words. To appre-ciate this problem, one might consider the beginning student of foreign lan-guage who knows the meaning of individual words of the foreign tongue, butwho has great difficulty following them expressed rapidly in spoken form. Itis difficult for him to distinguish between parts of words and between oneword and another.The result of faulty auditory discrimination is that students have troublerecognizing spoken words, probably have difficulty associating the spokenwith the written word, and have incredible spelling errors. Below is an exampleof a statement written by an eighth grader suffering from poor auditory dis-crimination:

financialprogramfull parntyementof war dept incurredby continentelcon-gress, tionpsmussaand full payment of state war depts. tremhislbatseof apound paper yenerrue saf place for pulie funds sources of credit financialagent for S.U. tremnrievog.Enactmentof higher tariff for revenue and pro-tection levyinsofarexcise tax on distilled iquor. (Goldberg et al., 1972,p. 101)Obviously, elementary teachers are warned about the significance of au-ditory discrimination problems in their students, and the instructors do theirbest to solve these problems. The question for educators is whether or not

teachers of older children are cognizant that such surface problems as poorspelling may have their roots in auditory processing inadequacies. The answeris probably in the negative.AuditoryMemory andAuditoryMemory Span

Thus far in examining auditory processing, we have fol-lowed the signal in the listener from awareness and atten-tion to localization and discrimination. The next two stepsin the process are concerned with memory- both short andlong term. Heasley distinguishes between the two in thisway: Auditory memory is "the ability to remember the characteristics of agiven sound or series of sounds" (p. 23), while auditory memory span is "theability to remember for increasing lengths of time the characteristics of a givensound or series of sounds." (p. 24) Sara W. Lundsteen (1971) has explained thevalue of memory in language acquisition:

In order for the listener to judge whether or not two or more speechsounds are alike he needs to keep the sounds in memory so that he can re-trieve them for comparison.He cannot make simultaneouscomparisonsinlisteningas he can in visualdiscrimination n reading.He has to dependuponhis auditory memory span. People tend to convert even visual informationto a memory that is structured for sound by saying things to themselves(p. 26)More recent researchers have broken short-term memory into two smallerparts sensory information storage (SIS), and short-term memory (STM)storage as Sticht et al. have reported in Auding and Reading: A DevelopmentalModel (1974). As Sticht et al. explain, the SIS stores vast amounts of informa-tion for very short durations of time. Because the image in SIS decays very


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quickly, it must be transformed or recoded by the subject's attending to it. Asthe information is recorded, it is affected by the subject's past experience; whenthe subject identifies a visual stimulus, he associates it with his previous experi-ence, thus creating a new image in STM. However, STM has a very limitedcapacity, and the information stored there can last from only 15-30 seconds.To retain information for a longer period of time, it must be recoded into longterm storage, which is relatively permanent with practically no capacity limit.Perhaps what is important about Sticht's work is that it suggests an importantomission in American education. Instead of showing a student how to remem-ber something, we have simply told him to remember it. Is this another mani-festation of the belief in a fixed intelligence as argued against in J. McV. Hunt'sIntelligence and Experience (1963)? We have not taught him the strategy forremembering or memorizing. When he has failed an examination, we havefailed to determine why - whether the "loss of memory for items is primarilydue to interferences" (Guilford, 1967, p. 297) or whether we failed to givethe student a method for "locating . . . needed information in storage." (Guil-ford, p. 311). In short we have tested without teaching.

Sound Sequenc-ing Ability

Sound sequencing, the next element of the hierarchy, isthe ability to identify a series of sounds in correct, respectiveorder. (Heasley, p. 25) This particular element of processingis probably the same or a similar one as described by Dale R. Jordan in Dyslexiain the Classroom (1972); Jordan's distinctions are not quite as precise as Heasley 'sbecause the former is here discussing the sequencing of words rather than justsounds.Auditory dyslexics are especially ill at ease in school because of their in-ability to comprehend sound-symbol associationsaccurately. When writingfrom dictation or following a seriesof oral instructions,the dyslexic studentsimply cannot cope with a sustainedflow of oral material. Because of hisextremely slow rate in transcribingspeech into written form, the auditorydyslexic loses the sequenceof oral elements, (p. 41)

Similarly, Donald L. Rampp (1972) points out even more specific problemswhich children have with serial memory, a skill combining memory and se-quence: naming the days of the week or months of the year and recallingthe alphabet, home address, telephone numbers, and birthdate. Also relatedto education, Lundsteen (1971) explains that youngsters, having sequencingproblems, may leave out certain steps in a process, forgetting the first steps andremembering just the later ones. This writer has seen the problem when stu-dents have been asked to write short papers describing how to do something,but in this case the difficulty seems more related to what has been called "ego-centric language." Frequently, the students will recognize the mistake when itis called to their attention, but they assume that their readers will supply themissing information. Lundsteen also feels some children are unable to recallsounds in their proper sequence in a word, resulting in unorthodox spelling andsometimes pronunciation. Myklebust (1965) cites a young man who was un-able to write the word "transportation"when it was dictated to him as a wholeword, but who could do so when it was broken into syllables and pronouncedslowly, (p. 30)


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68 RESEARCHIN THE TEACHING OF ENGLISHThe examples cited above illustrate not only that students have sound andword sequencing difficulties, but also that delineating the various componentsof auditory processing is not easy. They are simply too intricately intertwined.Perhaps these examples will remind educators, in addition, that they must de-termine not only whether a child succeeds or fails at a given task but alsowhy he succeeds or fails. The latter may be more important than the former.

AuditoryProjection

Heasley defines the next element of processing auditoryprojection- in this way:. . . the ability of the individual to attend to and process sound signalswhich originate from increasingly greater distances from the listener. ... Itnormally leads to the ability to 'scan*the auditory environment.Scanningfor danger signals as well as scanning for socially reinforcing signals is acommon auditory activity, (pp. 27-8)

After reviewing all the references noted at the end of this paper, this writerwas unable to find any other researcher who has noted this particular elementof processing. One is led to two possible conclusions: that the element is beingoverlooked by researchers or that the element is too artificial (they all are, tosome degree) to be considered as a separate element. The latter seems morelikely because projection appears too closely related to localization and toseparation, which will be discussed next.

AuditorySeparation

"The ability to attend to a primary sound signal in thepresence of extraneous (competing) sound stimuli" this isHeasley's definition of auditory separation. When a numberof sounds or noises are present and a person can listen to or react to just one,the person is exercising his ability of auditory separation, which may be oneof the most frequent problem elements in auditory processing. This ability toselect among competing sounds, although susceptible to problems, gives theear an attribute not shared by the eye. (Miller, 1951) And of all the sourcesreviewed by this writer, George Miller's Language and Communication (1951)probably supplies more details on this problem than any other source. He pointsout several ways in which one sound can be masked by others: backgroundnoise, interruptions, time delay, amplitude selectivity, frequency changes, andspeed of talking, (pp. 70-5) Chalfant et al. (1969) call auditory separation byanother name, which seems a little clearer auditory figure-ground selection,p. 16.What, then, is the importance of auditory separation for educators? DonaldRampp (1972) provided the best example uncovered by this writer:

The deficienciesexisting in figure-groundmanifestedby these children maybe exemplifiedby the parentwho spends several hours on the evening priorto her child's spelling test. The parent is confident when her child walks outthe frontdoor the next morning that he knows those spelling words front-wards and backwards;however, the child with the auditory processing dis-turbancedoes poorly on the test. The parentdoes not understand; he teacherdoubts that the parent spent that much time going over the test words; thechild is caught in the middle. What is not understood by either is that a


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PEOPLE HEARING WITHOUT LISTENING 69one-to-one teaching relationshipat home is completely different from thirty-or thirty-five-to-one relationshipsoften found in the school. The noise levelin the classroom is quite different from the noise level in the home. It issimply easier for a child with an auditory processing disturbance to attendwhen the background noise is attenuated. The signal-to-noise ratio or thespeech-to-noiseratio is of extreme significancewith these children and theirperformancein school, (p. 99)

Probably in the day when classrooms were filled with quiet, passive youngsters(if they ever existed), most of them- even if they had a deficient skill wouldnot suffer because the environment was relatively quiet. However, with theconcept of the "open classroom" becoming more popular, perhaps it is moreimportant than ever that teachers realize not all students are able to performat their best under those conditions, that teachers be watchful for studentsunable to select one sound from others around them, and that such studentsbe given special consideration in the "open classroom" setting.Auditory Blend-ing and Audi-

tory ClosureThe next two parts of Heasley's hierarchy- auditoryblending and closure- represent legitimate trouble spots.Some people are unable to synthesize parts of words, and noone would disagree with this concept, as Dale R. Jordan(1972) illustrates very clearly:

In Chapter1 an examplewas given of Mary'sattemptto read aloud froma science text. The heart of her decording handicap s faulty blending,whichleaves her unable to cope with one of the major skills of accurate wordanalysis.The entire auditory dyslexic syndrome seems to focus upon Mary'sproblemsin 'soundingout' words as she reads. For example,a familiarwordlike 'bug' can become a major hurdle for the dyslexic reader. LaboriouslyMary breaksthe word apart: 'buh-uh-guh.'As this effort illustrates,she hasnever accuratelyidentifiedthe vocal productionfor the consonantsb and g.When she feels somewhat confident that she has the separateelementsin mind,Mary takes the plunge: 'Blug.' Again she has failed. 'Yellow' comes outyelelow, 'bridge' turns into burge. Children like Mary quickly grow defen-sive and insecure when forced to expose themselvesinto such public failure.Traditional instruction in phonics which emphasizesblending is usuallybeyond the comprehensionof auditory dyslexics. It is possible for studentslike Mary to achieve success in simple word analysis after long-range drilland rote memorizationof key word patterns.This technique, called over-teaching, saturatesthe child with intensive, highly structured practice withregularword forms until an automaticresponse occurs. Childrenlike Maryseldomcome to a true understandingof blending and word analysis,althoughthey can often achieve an independentlevel of reading, (pp. 42-3)

Closure has to do with the ability to pull words together to derive meaningfrom what is said, which is made possible by redundancy in either read orspoken language. As Miller (1951) and Smith (1971) have pointed out, gen-erally when a person speaks or writes, he often uses extraneous words or herepeats his main idea throughout his oral or written communication. Goldberget al. (1972) have noted that part of this general problem of closure is perhapsrelated simply to efficient listening: "One other interesting observation is that


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70 RESEARCHIN THE TEACHING OF ENGLISHthe rate of thought is five times the rate of speech and good listenersutilizethis time gap more efficiently than poor listeners."(p. 102) Becausethere isso much redundancy, the listener becomes auditorily lazy as Nichols andLewis explainin Listeningand Speaking (1959):

The core of the problem of effective listening is the developmentof theutmost possibleconcentration n the immediate isteningsituation.Concentra-tion by the learner,however, is inseparably nter-twined with two variableslargely beyond his control: his own speed of thought and the rate of speechof the communicator. The tenth and last component of effective listening,and without much doubt the most significantof them all, requiresreconcilia-tion of thought speed and speech speed.How does the vast differentialbetween thought speed and speech speedaffect listening comprehension?The truth is that the differentialserves as atremendous handicap to the untrained learner. Although the disparity ofrate can with trainingbe made to expedite learning,it presently operatesforthe vast majority of us as a snare,a pitfall, and a delusion. It gives us a dis-tinctly false sense of security during aural assimilationand encouragesus toembarkupon risky and unprofitablemental tangents, (pp. 23-4)

Besidesrevealingthe meaningof auditory blending and closure, this explana-tion and these illustrationsbegin to show the difficultyof distinguishingwherepoor listening skills end and auditory processing difficultiesbegin. One maylegitimatelyask if a continuumeven makes sense.Re-auditorization Heasley designates re-auditorization as the last item in herhierarchy and defines it in this way: "The unvoiced recol-lection and 'holding' of a sound production." (p. 31) Since she earlier (p. 30)used "re-auditorization" synonomously with "subvocalization," we can assumethe latter in her eyes is closely related to the former or means the same as theformer. Apparently, however, one must re-auditorize, must remember and heara sound in one's mind before he can sub-vocalize or talk quietly to himself.Perhaps Myklebust (1973) is talking about the same concept when he explainsthe three basic language systems:

Language acquisition,as a cognitive process, can be understood as com-prising three basic systems: inner language (integration), receptive language(input), and expressivelanguage (output) (Myklebust, 1971a,b). The childfirst acquiresan experience, and then learns the words that symbolize thisexperience;the word dog has no significanceuntil the experience dog hasbeen attained.Therefore, inner languageis use of words to internalizesym-bolic meaning; it is the process of relating experience and symbol and pre-cedes actual use of receptive and expressivelanguage.After inner language has been acquiredto some degree, it is possible to

comprehendwhat is said by others. As comprehension s initiated,a processcritical to language development is establishedbecause reciprocal enhance-ment is fostered. When inner languagedevelops, facility with receptive lan-guage increases,andlikewise,comprehensionaugments nnerlanguagegrowth.In working with exceptional children one observesthat the child's disabilityaffects this vital cognitive process, (pp. 8-9)


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Jordan (1972) has nothing to say about re-auditorization, but he does pointout why subvocalizing is so important for the beginning and dyslexic readers.At the same time, he offers a number of reasons for educators being concernedwith this difficulty in some children:. . . Dyslexic students must subvocalize, if they are to succeed in translatingwriting into meaningful thought. Because of the underlying problem in asso-ciating sounds with written symbols, dyslexic readers must use a variety ofstimulus channels to verify their decoding impressions. A child with no im-pairment can learn to decode through visual stimulus alone. A perceptuallyimpaired child cannot.This frustrating need to reinforce visual cues with vocal response alongwith the tactile impression of following words with a finger on the page,should not upset classroom teachers. . . . The important consideration is thatdyslexic children must respond to reading in a variety of ways in order tocheck their impressions for accuracy. When the teacher snaps her fingers andhisses 'Shhhhhhhh!' she is cutting off an essential learning channel for audi-tory dyslexics. The result can only be increased frustration and failure.This need to reinforce symbol translation with vocal and tactile responsealso appears when auditory dyslexics are engaged in written arguments.These students need to subvocalize during spelling tests, or while writingstories or essays. If dyslexics are allowed to cross-check their impressions oforal and written symbols, they can learn to correct many mistakes in readingand spelling, (p. 42)

A RECAPITU-LATIONBefore discussing the implications of the material studiedto date on auditory disorders, a recapitulation appears inorder. At the outset, the three major types of auditory dif-ficulties were identified and explained: total or partial hearing loss due prin-

cipally to damage or flaws within the ear, total or partial hearing loss due pri-marily to damage within the central nervous system, and inefficient hearing asthe result of some problem in auditory processing. As this paper unfolded, theproblems of processing were broken into the components suggested by BerniceE. Heasley (1974):1. Awareness of sound 8. Sound sequencing ability2. Auditory attention 9. Auditory projection ability3. Auditory attention span 10. Auditory separation4. Localization of sound 11. Auditory blending5. Discrimination for sound 12. Auditory closure6. Auditory memory 13. Re-auditorization7. Auditory memory span (p. 18)Although Heasley's hierarchy was followed throughout the paper, this writercompared her work to the contributions of others in the field. Viewing all theelements in processing, one comes to the conclusion that these particular com-ponents are probably the most important, serious or common and that theseare the ones about which educators should be most concerned: attention, dis-crimination, memory, separation, and closure.At this point the reader probably feels this information is "nice to know/'


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72 RESEARCH IN THE TEACHINGOF ENGLISHbut he is puzzled about how it applies to him. In case the point has not beenrecognized earlier, this writer wants to make it clear that elementary or specialeducation students are not the only ones who have trouble with auditoryprocessing. Since some states still have no mandatory tests of hearing, one shouldnot be surprised to know that screening for auditory processing problems isthe exception rather than the rule across the country.Now the reader probably says to himself: "Well, there are probably so fewcases of auditory processing difficulties that mass screening is unnecessary. Any-way, if a student isn't performing well, a teacher would probably be able todetect any processing difficulty." To answer some of the implied questions inthese two sentences, note what some authorities have said on the subject.

It appearsthat ten to fifteen percent of the school age populationexperi-ences this strange inability to handle language symbols, in spite of goodmental ability, comfortable economic status, or instructional efforts withinthe classroom. (A. B. Templeton et al. [1969] as adapted by Dale R. Jordan[1972].)Commenting on that same Templeton report, Donald Rampp (1972) says,"Certainly a portion of that percentage is traceable to auditory processing dis-turbances. The most damaging manifestation of a learning disability or of anauditory processing disturbance is the difficulty in learning the reading process."(P- 97) Joseph Wepman goes beyond reading to other areas affected by process-

ing inadequacies (Rampp, 1972): "From such studies it is apparent that audi-tory perception rather than relating to speech development alone relates to allaspects of communicative language skills, to reading, language usage, spelling,and even arithmetic. The underlying factor in underachievement in some chil-dren, as this study indicates, may be found in their poorly developed auditoryperceptual abilities." (p. 175)In short, the beginnings of academic failure appear early and become moreand more serious as the years go by. Some of this failure is related to perceptualdevelopment, primarily visual and auditory. Apparently unknown numbers ofstudents enter first grade with inadequately developed perceptual skills, includ-ing auditory processing, which may not mature until the fourth grade or later.Despite this possible lag, most students are taught as if their perceptual skillsare mature. Consequently, without the requisite skills, some students are un-able to learn as well or as fast as their peers and gradually fall further andfurther behind, particularly in language acquisition. This academic failurecreates problems for both the students and their teachers. The students naturallybecome frustrated with their unsuccessful efforts to learn, and they graduallydevelop poor self-concepts, often manifesting themselves in behavioral anddisciplinary problems. The teachers begin to view these students as apatheticor intellectually limited because they have fallen so far behind academically.Therefore, by the fourth or fifth grade a poor self-concept- rather than im-mature perceptual skills may have become the principal contributing factorin academic failure.

THEIMPLICATIONS What, then, are the implications of all these findings tothe classroom? What can be done? Obviously a number ofauthorities have suggested approaches to solving our major


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PEOPLE HEARING WITHOUT LISTENING 73academic problems, most of which don't seem, by themselves, to be the an-swers. In a very general fashion, John Holt (How Children Learn and HowChildren Fail) has simplistically implied that the fault lies within a repressiveclassroom created by the teacher and the publishers of unimaginative materials.After reading Holt, one would assume that improving one's self-concept wouldautomatically overcome physical, perceptual, and academic deficiencies. SinceHolt has done little or no controlled research, we have to take his word on hisfindings which, of course, hold a grain of truth. Hans Furth (1972), dealingwith the general area of reading failure, has suggested that trying to teacheveryone how to read in the first or second grades is foolish because of in-adequate perceptual skill development. Furth would substitute the teaching ofthinking and problem-solving skills, to those who are perceptually immature,until the fourth grade when reading would be taught and when the processingskills would be mature. By delaying reading instruction for those who arenot ready for it, Furth hopes some poor self-concepts and some academic failurecan be avoided. Both of these approaches seem unrealistic. Teachers- withfive or more classes a day of 30 or more students can never be as creativeas Holt or anyone else would like them to be. And it is unreasonable to ex-pect boards of education to reduce the number of classes or class size to al-low teachers to function as they should. Although more realistic than Holt,Furth's notion would be difficult to sell to parents who are accustomed to seeingall first graders being taught how to read. But with some alterations, Furth'semphasis on skills in conjunction with reading instruction- might be realistic,acceptable, and worthwhile.What, specifically, should be done about auditory processing skills? Afterstudying this question for some time, this writer has found two different ap-proaches to the problem, assuming that no major changes are made in the time-table for teaching reading. First, if one were to follow the reasoning of theauditory specialists (psychologists, audiologists, and the like), one defines audi-tory processing as a highly technical problem which will be solved only afterconsiderably more research, very detailed and time-consuming diagnosis, andperhaps only after long periods of remediation. In keeping with this definition,a number of books and materials have been developed, especially for the ele-mentary student who has auditory processing problems. However, little or noresearch is available on the reliability or validity of these materals. Second, ifone were to follow the reasoning of those who are interested in listening skills,one begins to suspect that all disorders labeled auditory processing dysfunctionsmay not be nearly as complicated or complex as the specialists have led oneto believe. Some auditory processing problems may be nothing more than poorlistening or auding skills. Nichols and Lewis (1959) cite a number of studiesshowing that "learning through listening seldom operates at a more than a 25percent level of efficiency." (p. 4) In addition, they and Lundsteen (1971) givestatistical evidence that listening can be taught. Although some materials havebeen developed to teach listening, apparently very little attention has beengiven to this skill at the elementary, secondary or college levels. What seemsespecially strange about these two approaches is advocates for each never appearto acknowledge each other. In other words, the specialists never mention, inany of the material reviewed by this writer, that the problem could stem frompoor listening skills, and Nichols and Lundsteen never directly mention much


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74 RESEARCHIN THE TEACHINGOF ENGLISHof a relationship between poor listening skills and auditory processing difficulties.To attempt to solve this apparent dilemma, this writer suggests the problembe considered, for many students, as one of poor listening skills, and programsbe developed for teaching listening. If students undergo this kind of trainingand are unsuccessful, then they should be diagnosed very carefully in casethe problem is more sophisticated than a mere listening deficiency. At thattime, serious research should begin on auditory processing, an approach seeminglogical for the following reasons. First, research is already available, showingthat many students do not automatically listen well, that most students are nottaught how to listen, and that students can benefit from training. Second, researchis not available, showing that an auditory processing difficulty is distinct froma listening skill deficiency and that auditory processing training has any bene-fits. Third, beginning with the assumption that the problem is highly compli-cated in most students would almost invariably mean many years passing beforeanything could be done to solve the problem. More and more students wouldfail as the specialists tried to determine what the problem is and how it canbe remediated or solved. Fourth, beginning with the assumption that the prob-lem may stem from poor listening skills would mean that work could beginsooner to help students because we know something about teaching listening.Probably not all students would improve with a curriculum or course on howto listen, but surely a large number would be helped. If they were, the com-plexity of the problem would be reduced for the specialists who could thenturn their attention to those not succeeding. The scope of the problem, there-fore, would be limited.

REFERENCESBroadbent,D. E. Perception and Communication.Oxford: Pergamon Press. 1958.Brown, Ann L. "The Development of Memory: Knowing, Knowing about Knowing, andKnowing How to Know." In H. W. Reese (Ed.) Advances in Child Development andBehavior,Vol. 10. New York: Academic Press. 1975. dd. 103-152. . "The Role of Strategic Behavior in Retardate Memory." In N. R. Ellis (Ed.) In-ternationalReview of Research in Mental Retardation,Vol. 7. New York: AcademicPress, 1974,pp. 55-111.Chalfant,James C. and Margaret A. SchefFelin.Editors. CentralProcessing Dysfunctions inChildren:A Review of Research. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.1969.Cohen, Sheldon, David C. Glass, and Jerome E. Singer. "ApartmentNoise, Auditory Dis-crimination,and ReadingAbility in Children,"Journalof ExperimentalSocial Psychology,Vol. 9, 1973,pp. 407-422.Flavell, John H. "DevelopmentalStudies of Mediated Memory." In Hayne Reese and LewisP. Lipsitt (Eds.) Advances in Child Development and Behavior. Vol. 5. New York:Academic Press, 1970,pp. 182-211.Furth, Hans G. Piaget for Teachers.Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1970.Gibson,EleanorJ. Principlesof PerceptualLearningand Development. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts,1969.Goldberg, Herman K. and Gilbert B. Schiffman. Dyslexia: Problems of Reading Disabilities.New York: Grune & Stratton. 1972.Guilford, J. P. The Nature of Human Intelligence.New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1967.Heasley, Bernice E. Auditory Perceptual Disorders and Remediation. Springfield, Illinois:CharlesC Thomas, Publishers,1974.Human Communicationand Its Disorders- An Overview. Bethesda,Maryland: National In-stitutes of Health, Public Health Service, 1969.


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PEOPLE HEARING WITHOUT LISTENING 75Hunt. T. McV. Intelligence and Experience. New York: The Ronald Press. 1961.Jordan, Dale R. Dyslexia in the Classroom.Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill PublishingCompany, 1972.Lundsteen,SaraW. Listening:Its Impact on Reading and the Other Language Arts, Urbana,Illinois: NCTE, 1971.Miller, George A. Language and Communication.New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company,1951.Morency, Anne. "Auditory Modality, Research & Practice." From Helen K. Smith (Ed.)Perception and Reading. Newark, Delaware: InternationalReading Association, 1968,pp.17-21. and Joseph M. Wepman. "Early Perceptual Ability and Later School Achievement,"The ElementarySchool Journal, March 1973,pp. 323-327.Myklebust, Helmer R. Auditory Disorders in Children.New York: Grune & Stratton, 1954. . Development and Disorders of Written Language, Vol. 1. New York: Grune &Stratton,1965.Nichols, Ralph G. and Thomas R. Lewis. Listening and Speaking. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C.Brown PublishingCo., 1959.Rampp,Donald L., Editor. Proceedings of the Memphis State Universitys First Annual Sym-posium on Auditory Processing and Learning Disabilities,1972. (The place of publicationand the publisherare not given.)Singh, Sadanand.Measurement n Speech, Hearing, and Language. Baltimore,Maryland: Uni-versity Park Press, 1975.Smith,Frank. UnderstandingReading. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971.Snyder, Robert and Peggy Pope. "Auditory and Visual Inadequacies in Maturation at theFirst Grade Level," Journal of LearningDisabilities,Vol. 5, No. 10, December 1972,pp.620-625.Sticht, Thomas G., Lawrence J. Beck, Robert N. Hauke, Glenn M. Kleiman, and James H.James.Auding and Reading: A DevelopmentalModel. Alexandria,Virginia: Human Re-sources Research Organization,1974.Templeton, A. B. et al. Reading Disorders in the United States: Report of the Secretary's(HEW) National Advisory Committeeon Dyslexia and Reading Disorders.Washington,D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969.Tulving, Endel and StephenA. Madigan."Memoryand Verbal Learning."In Paul H. Mussenand Mack P. Rosenzweig (Eds.). Annual Review of Psychology. Vol. 21. Palo Alto,California:Annual Reviews, Inc., 1970.pp. 437-484.

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