Breaking the silence

Abstract

This study determined the academic performance of sixteen (16) hearing impaired pupils of Kalibo Elementary School II from Grades I to III and its relationship to their personal and family characteristics. The SPED teachers and parents served as key informants of the study. The descriptive-correlation research design was used. Results showed that majority of the hearing impaired were males, 10 years old and below and were between 2-3 years old at onset of hearing loss. Majority had profound hearing loss. Most of them had 3-5 siblings and parents who were college graduates. Half of the pupils belonged to families whose income was Php 10,000.00 and below. A fair academic performance was obtained by the hearing impaired pupils in Sign Language and Speech Reading and good in Mathematics and Makabayan. In terms of personal characteristics, only degree of hearing loss was found to be substantially correlated to academic performance of the hearing impaired children in Sign Language. There was moderate correlation between sex and degree of hearing loss and the pupils' performance in Sign Language, Speech and Mathematics. A very high to substantial correlation was obtained between parent's occupation and the children's performance in Sign Language, Speech, Mathematics and Makabayan. Family income substantially was a contributory factor in Speech Reading performance but only had moderate contribution in Sign Language, Mathematics and Makabayan.