Intelligence, creative thinking abilities and academic achievement of children with hearing impairment - A correlation study

Abstract

The present study investigated the relationship between intelligence and creative thinking abilities, intelligence and academic achievement and also academic achievement and creative thinking abilities of 11 to 13 years old children with hearing impairment studying in Residential special schools in Mysore. For testing Intelligence, Standard Progressive Matrices by J. C. Raven and for testing creative thinking abilities, Non- Verbal test of Creative Thinking Abilities by Baqer Mehdi tools were used for the study. These tools were administered on 50 (24 boys and 26 girls) 11 to 13 years old children with hearing impairment. Participants were instructed and the data was scored as per the manual. For testing the Academic achievement both the present and past class exam marks were collected from school records. The results indicated that there exists no significant relationship between intelligence and creative thinking abilities, academic achievement and creative thinking abilities. But there exists significant relationship between intelligence and academic achievement. The study also revealed that children scoring Intelligence Grade V indicating “intellectually impaired” outperformed in creative thinking abilities compared to those children scoring Grade III indicating “intellectually average” and Grade IV indicating “below average in intellectual capacity”. The results of the current study can be used to plan special programs based on the abilities and talents of children with hearing impairment rather than intelligence and school exam marks in order to foster their creative thinking abilities and thereby prepare them for appropriate and productive vocations.