Empirical Articles
Barely Started and Already Left Behind: A Descriptive Analysis
of the Mathematics Ability Demonstrated by Young Deaf
Children
Karen L. Kritzer
Kent State University
This study examined young deaf children’s early informal/
formal mathematical knowledge as measured by the Test of
Early Mathematics Ability (TEMA-3). Findings from this
study suggest that prior to the onset of formal schooling,
young deaf children might already demonstrate evidence of
academic delays. Of these 28 participants (4–6 years of age),
for whom data were analyzed, none received a score on the
TEMA-3, indicating above-‘‘average’’ ability according to
normative ranking. More than half of participants received
scores substantially below average with 11 participants receiving
scores a year or more behind normative age-equivalent scores.
Upon more focused analysis, specific areas of difficulty were
found to include word/story problems, skip counting (i.e.,
counting by twos, threes, etc.), number comparisons, the
reading/writing of two to three digit numbers, and addition/
subtraction number facts. A qualitative analysis of the answers
participants gave and the behaviors they demonstrated while
answering the test items was conducted and revealed possible
explanations for why specific test items may have been challeng-
ing. Implications of findings for parents, early interventionists,
and teachers of young deaf children are discussed.
Regardless of how mathematics ability is measured,
deaf and hard-of-hearing (d/hh) students continue
to demonstrate skill levels that are substantially below
that of their hearing peers. Low levels of achievement
have been demonstrated in test scores (Traxler, 2000;
Wood, Wood, Griffiths & Howarth, 1986), in tasks
involving reasoning (Allen, 1995), logical thinking
(Marschark & Everhart, 1999), and problem solving
The author wishes to thank the members of her dissertation committee
(Drs Claudia M. Pagliaro, Ellen Ansell, Ellice Forman, David Martin,
and Louise Kaczmarek) for their support while conducting the study on
which the research presented in this article is based. No conflicts of
interest were reported. Correspondence should be sent to Karen L.
Kritzer, Educational Foundations and Special Services 405, White Hall,
PO Box 5190, Kent, OH 44242-0001 (e-mail: kkritzer@kent.edu).
Ó The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
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(Ansell & Pagliaro, 2006). This lag in achievement
persists despite a national focus on school readiness
(Executive Office of the President, 1990), a mandate
by President George W. Bush to increase the mathe-
matics achievement of our nation’s children (Executive
Order: National Mathematics Advisory Panel, 2006),
and a growing body of research regarding the mathe-
matics performance of d/hh students (Allen, 1995;
Ansell & Pagliaro, 2006; Nunes & Moreno, 2002). Even
with increased research attention on mathematics, lim-
ited information is available regarding precisely when
the achievement gap starts, possibly because the major-
ity of research in this area has focused on the school-age
population or higher. It is possible that young deaf
children are being left behind even prior to the onset
of formal schooling. One purpose of the study de-
scribed in this article was to investigate this possibility.
Background
In the United States, young children are expected to
be ready to partake in mathematical tasks by the time
they enter kindergarten (i.e., the year prior to the
onset of their formal education). According to the
Principles and Standards for School Mathematics
published by the National Council of Teachers of
Mathematics (NCTM, 2000), in kindergarten class-
rooms, young children are expected to engage in
mathematics learning incorporating content in each
of the following domains: Number and Operations,
Algebra, Geometry, Measurement, and Data Analysis
and Probability. They will also be expected to engage
doi:10.1093/deafed/enp015
Advance Access publication on July 13, 2009
410 Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 14:4 Fall 2009
in processes that incorporate problem solving, reason-
ing and proof, communication, making connections,
and using representations. Specifically, in kindergarten
classrooms, young children should be developing
mathematics readiness skills such as an ability to
count, label and compare shapes, compare columns
on a graph, etc. They should also be developing the
ability to solve problems when presented in a real-
world context; for example, given a plate of cookies,
be able to distribute them fairly. They should also be
learning how to make connections and recognize rela-
tionships; for example, learning to recognize that spe-
cific aspects of a routine always happen in similar
order or at a specified time of day.
Early learning experiences prior to the onset of
formal schooling play an important role in forming
the foundation for mathematics learning and provid-
ing young children with the skills they need to be
ready for kindergarten. In a joint position statement
on ‘‘promoting good beginnings’’ written by NCTM
in conjunction with the National Association for the
Education of Young Children (NAEYC and NCTM,
2002), the following recommendations are offered to
encourage early learning of mathematics: use mathe-
matics to show young children how to make sense of
the world around them, build upon children’s existing
mathematical knowledge and experience, interact with
mathematical ideas, and use mathematics during daily
activities. It is also recognized in this position statement
that early in development children’s understanding of
mathematics concepts may be intuitive rather than ex-
plicit. Lack of explicit awareness of early mathematics
concepts may make it difficult for young children to
make use of their prior knowledge and to make connec-
tions to the formal mathematics concepts that they en-
counter in the school setting. Therefore, as discussed in
the position statement, children between the ages of 3
and 6 years need to learn how to ‘‘mathematize’’ their
environment or learn to understand mathematically
what intuitively makes sense to them (NAEYC &
NCTM, 2002); for example, although the young child
might intuitively understand that having five cookies
and giving two to a sibling will result in having less
than she/he had previously, this understanding can be
‘‘mathematized’’ first through the process of counting
and later with use of algorithms such as 5 – 2 5 3.
Early Mathematics Learning
Research indicates that by the time they start school,
young hearing children already have a strong founda-
tion of mathematics knowledge. They understand
counting principles (Gelman & Gallistel, 1978), are
aware of the quantitative relationships represented
by numbers (Sarnecka & Gelman, 2004), can evaluate
relationships between size and shape (Sophian, 2002),
distinguish between shapes and identify their defining
characteristics (Clements, Swaminathan, Hannibal, &
Sarama, 1999), as well as classify them (Deak, Ray, &
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Pick, 2002). By the age of 5 years, children have also
been found to demonstrate an understanding of quan-
titative (part–whole) relationships between sets
(Sophian & McCorgray, 1994).
Informally, prior to the onset of formal mathemat-
ics instruction, young hearing children have been
found to demonstrate their awareness of mathematics
concepts during play. In a study by Ginsburg, Inoue,
and Seo (1999), 4- and 5-year-old children were ob-
served during free-play situations in their classrooms.
Of the 469 min of observation, mathematical activities
were found to comprise 209 min (44.6%) of the child-
ren’s time. Children were observed to partake in five
different types of mathematical awareness activities:
patterns and shapes (36%), exploration of change
(22%), relations (18%), classification (13%), and enu-
meration (11%).
Less information is available, however, regarding
the early mathematics skills of deaf children in the
same age range. Findings from two studies, both in
the area of early number understanding, suggest that
young deaf children demonstrate some age-appropriate
skills related to mathematics (Leybaert & Van Cutsem,
2002; Zarfaty, Nunes, & Bryant, 2004); both examined
the children’s early number understanding. The per-
formance of young deaf (n 5 10) and hearing (n 5 10)
children between 3 and 4 years of age in spatial and
temporal number tasks was investigated by Zarfaty
et al. (2004). Children were presented with sets of
objects both spatially (i.e., all items were presented
together in a spatial array) and temporally (i.e., items
were presented one at a time in a sequence) and tested
for their ability to remember and reproduce the num-
ber of objects in the set with which they were

presented. Results showed deaf and hearing children
performing equally well on temporal tasks; however,
the deaf children performed significantly better on
the spatial task, indicating that young deaf children’s
abilities to represent number may be at least as well
developed as their hearing peers before they enter
school.
Another study, conducted by Leybaert and Van
Cutsem (2002), examined the development and use
of counting by deaf (n 5 21) and hearing (n 5 28)
children between the ages of 3 and 6 years as measured
through their performance on three tasks: an abstract
counting task that required the children to count as
high as they could, stopping at 100, an object counting
task that required children to count a series of animals
or cartoon characters that were mounted on a wooden
plaque, and a task that required children to create sets
of a given cardinality. Findings from this study indi-
cate an age-related lag of approximately 2 years in deaf
children’s knowledge of the counting string as mea-
sured by the first task. However, the children who par-
ticipated in this study did demonstrate age-appropriate
skills in object counting and creating sets of a given
cardinality.
Although the findings from the two studies discussed
above suggest that young deaf children demonstrate
some age-appropriate skills related to mathematics,
both involved tasks reflecting only the children’s under-
standing of number concepts. Research is needed to in-
vestigate this population’s overall mathematics ability,
including their understanding of informal and formal
mathematics concepts.
Research related to the mathematics skills of older
deaf children suggests that a strong foundation in the
early development of mathematics concepts might not
be happening; deaf students demonstrate low levels of
achievement in various areas of mathematics involving
computation and problem solving (Allen, 1995; Ansell
& Pagliaro, 2006; Marschark & Everhart, 1999;
Traxler, 2000). Research indicates that delays in
mathematics achievement also exist internationally.
Upon leaving school, students in the United Kingdom
were found to lag 2–3.5 years behind their hearing
peers; these delays were found to be unrelated to gen-
der or level of hearing loss (Wood et al., 1986). When
compared to their hearing peers in the use of strategies
Barely Started and Already Left Behind 411
to solve arithmetic problems, deaf students demon-
strate substantial delays (Chien, 1993; Frostad, 1999;
Hyde, Zevenbergen, & Power, 2003; Secada, 1984;
Serrano Pau, 1995). In addition, research by Ansell
and Pagliaro (2006) indicates that deaf children in
their early years of formal schooling show distinct
differences in their solving of arithmetic story prob-
lems. Although young hearing children tend to con-
sider the story present in an arithmetic problem, deaf
children are more likely to focus on the computation
method that is traditionally used to solve the problem.
Less research has been conducted to examine the
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reasons behind this persistent pattern of low achieve-
ment. In a study that sought to explore reasons for the
underachievement demonstrated by 14-year olds in
the United Kingdom, several differences were found
in the manner in which deaf students responded to
test items. These differences were sorted into four
main categories: language issues, demonstrated by lim-
ited understanding of mathematical vocabulary and/or
difficulties with language structure; work habits, dem-
onstrated by limited use of mental calculation;
responses in written English which were incomplete
or lacked the element of explanation; and a general
lack of knowledge of content for test items focused
on concepts that were considered ‘difficult to teach’
(Swanwick, Oddy, & Roper, 2005).
In understanding why deaf students may fall be-
hind in mathematics, Gregory (1998) suggests that
language issues may be, in part, to blame since words
that are part of everyday vocabulary may have a specif-
ically defined meaning when used mathematically; for
example, a ‘‘high’’ number will refer to quantity rather
than physical spatial location. Gregory (1998) also
discusses the importance of the role that incidental
learning experiences play in developing informal
mathematical concepts; for example, overhearing dis-
cussions related to the speed that cars travel or the size
of clothing. Deaf children may lack access to these
conversations, thereby limiting their exposure to
mathematical learning opportunities.
Such findings suggest that, during their early
childhood years, deaf children may not be building
the mathematical foundation necessary for successful
performance in the formal mathematics that they will
encounter during their school years. Early experiences
412 Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 14:4 Fall 2009
in the home may, in part, be responsible. Although
they may not always be cognizant of it, parents often
contribute to their child’s early informal learning of
mathematics concepts and skills (Anderson, 1998). In
a variety of studies regarding the use of early mathe-
matics in the home, mothers of hearing children were
found to incorporate numbers into their young child-
ren’s daily routines as they counted snacks, played
number games, or read numbers off of license plates
while traveling (Aubrey, Bottle, & Godfrey, 2003;
Saxe, Guberman, & Gearhart, 1987). Parents also
demonstrate an ability to incorporate mathematics into
activities with their young children in other ways.
When given a kit of materials and activities that had
mathematical potential, parents of 4-year-old hearing
children were found to incorporate a wide rage of
mathematics concepts (e.g., naming numbers, estima-
tion, shape recognition, size comparison, measure-
ment, etc.) with counting being the most prevalent
(Anderson, 1997). Case-study research indicates that
parents of young hearing children have also been
found to incorporate book reading to stimulate math-
ematical discussions, such as the relationship between
the color of each pig’s clothing and his house in The
Three Little Pigs (Phillips & Anderson, 1993).
Early informal experiences with mathematics assist
young children in developing a vocabulary to express
their understanding of mathematically based concepts.
For example, Walkerdine (1988) tells of a casual con-
versation between a mother and her 3.9-year-old hear-
ing child where the child was found to use 10 different
relational terms to describe the concept of ‘‘big’’ (i.e.,
big, bigger, biggest, bit big, very big, as big as, not big
enough, not big, bit bigger, too big), indicating an
awareness that there are varying degrees to which
something can be described as large in size. Moreover,
Anderson (1997) found that parents make use of me-
diation techniques, such as asking questions, request-
ing explanations, and offering information regarding
patterns, relationships, and strategies to stimulate their
young children’s mathematics knowledge. Given the
vast quantity of informal learning experiences that
contribute to young hearing children’s early mathe-
matics knowledge, it is not surprising that these chil-
dren begin formal schooling already knowing a great
deal of mathematics.
Parents of young deaf children, however, may not be
contributing to their children’s informal learning of
mathematics concepts in the same manner demonstrated
by parents of hearing children. In a study by Kritzer
(2009), during a full day of observation, parents were
found to make limited references to mathematics con-
cepts in the following domains: numbers and/or count-
ing, quantity, time and/or sequence, and categorization.
Even when parents were given a problem-solving activity
to complete with their children that was mathematical in
nature, limited references were made to mathematics
concepts (Kritzer, 2008).
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Research findings indicate that early academic abil-
ity, particularly in the domain of mathematics, corre-
lates with later achievement (Jimerson, Egeland, & Teo,
1999; Stevenson & Newman, 1986) and that early
school experiences, family interaction, and the home
environment are important predictors of later academic
success (Jimerson et al., 1999). For these reasons, it is
essential that young deaf children develop the knowl-
edge they need early to prevent them from being left
behind when they reach formal school age. To this end,
answering the following research questions were the
focus of the study described in this article:
1. As evaluated by the Test of Early Mathematics
Ability-3 (TEMA-3), do young deaf children
demonstrate age-appropriate understanding of
early mathematics concepts (i.e., numbering,
number comparisons, calculation, concepts,
numeral literacy, number facts)?
2. What aspects of early informal (i.e., numbering,
number comparisons, calculations, concepts)
and formal (i.e., numeral literacy, number facts,
calculation, concepts) mathematics pose the
greatest challenge for young deaf children?
3. What did the nature of the responses and/or
behaviors demonstrated by high- and low-
performing children while completing the most
challenging test items reveal about their early
mathematical understanding?
Methods
Participants
Twenty-nine deaf children from seven schools for the
deaf across the United States participated in the

study described in this article. The children were
between the ages of 4 and 6 years, with no additional
disabilities, and from homes in which American Sign
Language (ASL) or spoken English was the primary
language spoken. This age level was chosen in order
to examine deaf children’s early mathematics ability
prior to the onset of formal instruction. In the
United States, ‘‘first grade’’ marks the beginning of
formal schooling. This may be the first time that the
child attends school for a full day; this will also be the
first time that she/he is exposed to a curriculum that
is formally structured. Prior to first grade, the child’s
education may have been largely play based and
designed to develop informal and/or experiential
knowledge. No child participating in this study was
yet enrolled in a first-grade classroom.
During a subsequent part of this study, the
researcher went into the homes of a subgroup of par-
ticipants to observe learning activities within a natural-
istic environment. The researcher is proficient in only
two languages (English and ASL); therefore, children
from homes in which languages other than English or
ASL were the primary means of communication were
not included in the study. Data from this subsequent
part of the study will not be discussed in this article
but have been published elsewhere (Kritzer, 2008;
Kritzer, 2009).
The TEMA-3 (Ginsburg & Baroody, 2003) was
administered to all 29 children who participated in
this study. Participants’ ages were as follows: 27.6%
(n 5 8) were 4 years old, 65.5% (n 5 19) were 5 years
old, and 6.9% (n 5 2) were 6 years old. The majority
of children came from homes with at least one deaf
parent: 59.6% (n 5 17); 41.4% (n 5 12) had hearing
parents. The majority, 86.2% (n 5 25) used an assis-
tive listening device (e.g., hearing aids) at least some
of the time; five of these children used a cochlear
implant. Based on a self-evaluation of sign language
skills reported by parents, 44.8% (n 5 13) of partic-
ipants had ‘‘fluent’’ exposure to language in the home,
17.2% (n 5 5) had ‘‘good’’ exposure, 20% (n 5 6) had
‘‘limited’’ exposure, and for 17.2% (n 5 5) of partic-
ipants, the level of exposure to sign language is un-
known due to unreported data. Based on test score, one
child was considered an outlier and removed from data
considered for analysis. The rationale for the removal
Barely Started and Already Left Behind 413
of this participant will be explained further in a later
section.
Instrumentation
Two instruments were used to collect the data reported
on in this study. A background questionnaire was used
to obtain information regarding the nature of partici-
pants’ hearing loss and specific family information. Al-
though a limitation of this instrument is that data were
self-reported, this limitation is reduced by the fact that
the majority of questions were not subjective in nature
(i.e., parents were asked to report child’s age, level of
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hearing loss, etc.) On certain questions, which did re-
quire a subjective response (e.g., assessment of ones’
own sign language competency), this limitation was re-
duced by accessing similar information through multi-
ple questions (e.g., parents’ signing skills were also
accessed by answering a question regarding the quantity
of sign language classes they had taken).
The TEMA-3 utilizes both informal and formal
tasks to measure the mathematics ability of young
children between the ages of 3.0 and 8.11 years. The
test takes approximately 40 min to administer and is
given to each child individually. Results are available as
standard scores, percentile ranks, age, and grade
equivalents. The purpose in using this instrument
was to provide the researcher with a standardized
means of assessing the informal (i.e., numbering,
number comparisons, calculation, concepts) and for-
mal (i.e., numeral literacy, number facts, calculation,
concepts) mathematics ability of participating children
in a variety of areas related to the understanding of
number. The TEMA-3 was standardized based on the
responses of 1,219 children whose characteristics ap-
proximate those reported in 2001 U.S. census infor-
mation. Internal consistency reliabilities for the
TEMA-3 are reported to be above .92 (Ginsburg &
Baroody, 2003). A prior version of the TEMA,
TEMA-2, has been used in other research studies
(Arnold, Fisher, Doctoroff, & Dobbs, 2002; Teisl,
Mazzocco, & Myers, 2001) to assess young children’s
mathematical performance, but the test has not been
normed for d/hh children.
One limitation to the study is that, due to the lan-
guage needs of participants, the test was not standard-
ized in its presentation. Four of the children received
414 Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 14:4 Fall 2009
the test in spoken language (supported by signs); for
the remaining 25 children, the test was presented in
ASL. The researcher consulted with a deaf faculty
member and instructor of ASL in the department of
linguistics at a university to discuss test presentation
in ASL and recorded a transcription of the test in
ASL gloss (recorded onto the test book). One challenge
to presenting the test using ASL was that several
test items did not lend themselves to translation into
a visual form. For example, one test item requires chil-
dren to show a specified number of fingers. Believing
that this would be confusing for children who use a visual
language, this test item was modified for all participants.
In the modified version, children were requested to
show a specified number of tokens, rather than fingers.
Since numbers 1–5 when presented in ASL include an
aspect of cardinality (e.g., the sign for ‘‘2’’ uses two
fingers), there is the potential that deaf children had
an advantage in answering this test item. As will be
demonstrated in the results, however, this did not
seem to contribute to an overall advantage in final test
score.
The researcher also discussed ASL presentation of
the test with a researcher in deaf education with an
expertise in the area of mathematics to make sure that
the test maintained its mathematical integrity when it
was presented visually. When presenting the test to the
25 children who used ASL, the researcher followed
the glossed version to ensure that test presentation
was as similar as possible. Nevertheless, as is the case
when any standardized test is not presented as written,
presentation of the TEMA-3 in a visual language is
recognized as a limitation of the research presented
here.
The informal mathematics section of the TEMA-3
focuses on mathematical knowledge that is implicitly
acquired rather than formally taught. For example,
informal mathematics concepts may be picked up
through interaction with one’s environment, self-
initiated activities, or general incidental learning
(Ginsburg & Baroody, 2003). In contrast, the ques-
tions on the TEMA-3 related to formal mathematics
focus on mathematical knowledge that is explicitly
taught, usually in school. Such mathematics includes
arithmetic skills, use of symbols, and algorithmic pro-
cedures (Ginsburg & Baroody, 2003).
Table 1 TEMA-3 ranking
Number of
participants
TEMA-3 score TEMA rank (n 5 29)
.131 Very superior 1 (OUTLIER,
REMOVED
FROM ANALYSIS)
121–130 Superior 0
111–120 Above average 0
90–110 Average 13
80–89 Below average 7
70–79 Poor 7
,69 Very poor 1
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Results
To answer the first research question, ‘‘As evaluated by
the Test of Early Mathematics Ability-3, do young deaf
children demonstrate age-appropriate understanding
of early mathematics concepts (i.e., numbering, num-
ber comparisons, calculation, concepts, numeral liter-
acy, number facts)?,’’ TEMA-3 norm-based categorical
score rankings were used to evaluate the participants’
understanding of early mathematics concepts (i.e.,
numbering, number comparisons, calculation, con-
cepts, numeral literacy, number facts). According to
this rating system, mathematical ability scores are
classified as follows: below 69, very poor; 70–79, poor;
80–89, below average; 90–110, average; 111–120, above
average; 121–130, superior; and greater than 131 is very
superior (Ginsburg & Baroody, 2003). As reported in
Table 1, of all 29 participants in this study, only one
child scored above average. Because this score (130)
was more than 2 SDs above the group mean of the
given sample (89.69), and more than 1 SD away from
the next highest score (109), it was determined to be an
outlier and removed from the group considered for
analysis. Remaining participants were ranked as fol-
lows: 13 participants scored in the average range, 7
participants scored in the below average range, 7 par-
ticipants scored in the poor range, and 1 participant
scored in the very poor range.
When considered according to their norm-ranked
age-equivalent scores, participants (n 5 28) can be
described as follows: 4 participants (14.29%) achieved
scores that were 1–4 months above, 6 participants
(21.43%) achieved scores that were 2–6 months below,

7 participants (25%) received scores that were 7–10
months below, and 11 participants (39.39%) received
scores that were a year or more (12–22 months) below
their age-equivalent scores.
Such findings indicate that, even prior to the onset
of formal schooling, over 60% of the participants were
already demonstrating substantial delays in their un-
derstanding of mathematics concepts, performing 7
months or more below their hearing peers, according
to test norms. Even the highest performing partici-
pants were truly only scoring at an average level
according to test norms. Test scores alone, however,
provide insufficient information regarding specific
aspects of mathematics that young deaf children have
difficulty with. Therefore, the children’s performance
on the test was further analyzed to answer the second
research question, ‘‘what aspects of early informal (i.e.,
numbering, number comparisons, calculations, con-
cepts) and formal (i.e., numeral literacy, number facts,
calculations, concepts) mathematics pose the greatest
challenge for young deaf children?’’
Test items were classified as either low in difficulty
(answered correctly by 75% or more of the partici-
pants to whom the test item was presented, range:
8–27 participants), moderate in difficulty (answered
correctly by 26%–74% of participants to whom the
test item was presented, range: 11–27 participants), or
high in difficulty (answered correctly by 25% or less of
participants to whom the test item was presented,
range: 1–26 participants). Given this classification sys-
tem, 12 test items were classified as low in difficulty, 17
test items were classified as moderate in difficulty, and
17 test items were classified as high in difficulty.
Of the 12 test items that were classified as low in
difficulty, 10 involved informal mathematics concepts
and 2 involved formal mathematics concepts. Of the
10 informal mathematics concepts, 8 test items were
related to numbering concepts as follows: perception of
small numbers (telling how many items were present
in a picture), ability to produce displays of quantita-
tive concepts (1, 2, many; 1–5), and demonstration of
ability to count (1–5, 6–10, 11–20). One informal test
item was related to demonstration of the cardinality
rule (telling how many, after the picture of items just
counted was removed). The final low difficulty in-
formal test item involved nonverbal concrete addition
Barely Started and Already Left Behind 415
and subtraction (participants were asked to play
a ‘‘make yours like mine’’ game, showing how many
tokens would remain in the researcher’s hidden dis-
play after an addition/subtraction action was per-
formed). The two low-difficulty formal test items
both related to numeral literacy (i.e., reading single-
digit numerals, reading numerals representing num-
bers in the teens).
Of the 17 test items that were classified as high in
difficulty, 10 involved informal mathematics concepts
and seven involved formal mathematics concepts. Of
the 10 test items using informal mathematics concepts,
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five used number concepts such as naming the number
after (to 40, to 90), counting (up to 42), and counting
by 10s (100–190). Highly difficult informal test items
also involved the ability to make number comparisons
using a mental number line (for two-digit numbers)
and performing calculations using concrete modeling
when given word/story problems to solve. Of the
seven formal mathematics test items, one test item
involved concepts of symbolic additive commutative
properties (matching a number sentence to a stated
word/story problem), three test items involved writing
numerals (two digit, three digit) and reading three-digit
numerals, and three test items involved answering basic
addition and subtraction number facts.
Because the range of participants who answered
the highly difficult test items varied (range 1–26), in
order to determine which of these test items were the
most difficult, a test item was only considered if it was
presented to more than half of the participants (n . 14).
Given these criteria, four test items were considered
to be the ‘‘most difficult’’ of the test items presented
to participants. The number of participants answering
each item is indicated in Table 2. All four test items
involved informal mathematics concepts; one test item
involved naming the number after for two-digit num-
bers up to 40, the remaining three were word/story
problems.
Children’s performance on the four most challeng-
ing test items was further analyzed to answer the third
research question, ‘‘what did the nature of the
responses and/or behaviors demonstrated by high-
and low-performing children while completing the
most challenging test items reveal about their early
mathematical understanding?’’
416 Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 14:4 Fall 2009
Table 2 Most difficult test items by mathematics ability
score grouping
Test item name High Average Low Total
Concrete Modeling of 6 15 5 26
Addition Word Problems
Part–Whole 6 15 5 26
(word problem)
Number After to 40 6 9 3 18
Equal partitioning 6 8 2 16
(word problem)
Given the depressed distribution of scores on the
TEMA-3 obtained from this sample, ‘‘high’’ and
‘‘low’’ levels of achievement could not be effectively
evaluated using the norming scale established by the
TEMA-3 (as only one child scored above average). For
this reason, a different ranking system was used to
categorize participants in this study based on the test
scores obtained from the sample under consideration.
After removal of the outlier, participants were ranked
into one of three groups as follows: participants with
scores within 1 SD (12.444) of the recalculated mean
(88.25) formed the middle or average group. Scores
within 2 SDs above (.101) and below (,76) the mean
formed the ‘‘high’’ and ‘‘low’’ groups, respectively. As
described in Table 3, using this ranking system par-
ticipants were categorized as follows: 6 participants
received scores in the ‘‘high’’ range, 15 participants
received scores in the average range, and 7 received
scores in the ‘‘low’’ range.
Of the six children classified as having ‘‘high’’
mathematical ability: one child had hearing parents,
the other five had at least one deaf parent, five were
5-years-old, one was 4-years-old, and five of the six
used an assistive listening device (i.e., hearing aids).
Of the seven participants classified as having ‘‘low’’
mathematical ability: five had hearing parents, two
had at least one deaf parent, six of the children were
5 years old, one was 4 years old, and four used an
assistive listening device (i.e., hearing aids [3]; co-
chlear implant [1]).
The first highly difficult test item, Number After:
Two-Digit Numbers to 40, was presented to 18 partic-
ipants and answered correctly by two. Participants
were given the following prompt ‘‘24, what’s next?’’
and, ‘‘33, what’s next?,’’ and were only given credit
Table 3 TEMA-3, adapted ranking
Number of
TEMA participants
TEMA-3 scores rank (n 5 28)
.101 (102–109) High 6
76–101 (79–100) Average 15
,76 (68–75) Low 7
for a correct response if both parts were answered
correctly.
Solving the Number After test item correctly
requires an ability to count and understand number
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concepts up to 40. No participant who answered this
test item incorrectly demonstrated an ability to count
higher than 21; furthermore, no participant with low
mathematics ability demonstrated an ability to count
higher than 10. In addition, one needs to understand
that the correct response to this test item will be
a number. Of the four participants with high mathe-
matics ability who answered this test item incorrectly,
all gave numerical answers. In comparison, the two
participants with low mathematics ability responded
by counting, one participant counted to 13, the other
participant counted as follows, ‘‘1, 3, 36.’’ Such per-
formance might indicate that participants with high
mathematics ability were better able to understand
what an appropriate response would be, even if they
were unable to answer the test item correctly.
The second highly difficult test item, Concrete
Modeling of Addition Word Problems: Sums up to 9,
was presented to 26 participants and answered cor-
rectly by five. Participants were given the following
prompt: ‘‘Joey has 1 token, and he gets 2 more. How
many does he have altogether? (Ginsburg & Baroody,
2003).’’ The problem was then repeated with different
number combinations (all below five). Participants
were given tokens to use to solve the problem and
were only given credit for a correct response if two
of the three number combinations were answered
correctly.
To solve the Concrete Modeling of Addition
Word Problems test item correctly one needs to be
able to make sets in order to represent the quantities
in the problem. In addition, one must be able to make
number comparisons, understanding that the sum
should be larger than either of the sets considered

individually. In addition, solving the problem cor-
rectly requires an understanding of the relationship
between the numbers and the story presented in the
problem. Of the two participants with high mathe-
matics ability who answered this test item incorrectly,
both demonstrated an ability to make sets of up to
five items correctly and to make number comparisons
(given two stated quantities, they could answer which
was more) up to five. In contrast, only two of the
children with low mathematics ability successfully
made sets (of up to five items); none demonstrated
an ability to make number comparisons up to five.
Although no participant who answered this prob-
lem incorrectly appeared to understand the relation-
ship between the numbers and the story in the
problem, the two children with high mathematics abil-
ity both attended to the story and responded by count-
ing some combination of the tokens that were
available. In contrast, children with low mathematics
ability were not attentive to the telling of the story.
When asked to solve the problem, they were observed
to play with the tokens in a manner unrelated to the
problem.
The third highly difficult test item, Part–Whole
concept, was presented to 26 participants and answered
correctly by none. Participants were given the follow-
ing prompt: ‘‘Angie bought some candies. Her mother
bought her 3 more candies. Now Angie has 5 candies.
How many candies did Angie buy (Ginsburg &
Baroody, 2003)?’’ This prompt was the first of 4 trials,
all of which had to be answered correctly for the par-
ticipant to receive credit for the test item.
In order to solve the Part–Whole concept test
item correctly, one needs to be able to make and
compare sets, recognize ‘‘part’’ as separate from
‘‘whole’’, understand change over time, and be able
to recognize the concept of ‘‘some’’ as an abstract way
to reference quantity. Similar to the test item de-
scribed previously, participants needed to be able to
recognize the relationship between the numbers and
the story in the problem. All children with high
mathematics ability demonstrated an ability to make
sets of up to five items; they were also able to
compare numbers up to five successfully. Although
the test did not allow the opportunity to assess un-
derstanding of the other prerequisite skills, at least as
Barely Started and Already Left Behind 417
demonstrated by one child’s actions, it is likely that
the use of the concept of ‘‘some’’ to reference
quantity might have caused some confusion. This
child responded by playing with the sign, replacing
the researcher’s sign referring to a small amount of
candy with a sign indicating a much larger quantity.
Three of the remaining high-ability children
responded either by stating numbers from the prob-
lem or by counting the tokens that were available. In
contrast, children with low mathematics ability did
not demonstrate an ability to make sets or number
comparisons. When given the test item to solve, they
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responded with behaviors unrelated to the problem,
for example, by either playing with the tokens or
stating that they wanted candy.
The final highly difficult test item, Equal-
Partitioning: Fair-Sharing of Discrete Quantities, was
presented to 16 participants and answered correctly
by none. Participants were given the following
prompt: ‘‘Monique and Unique’s mother baked 12
cookies. If the girls shared the cookies fairly, how many
would each get?’’ Followed by, ‘‘If their mother joins
them and the cookies are shared fairly, how many
would each get? (Ginsburg & Baroody, 2003)’’ Both
questions needed to be answered correctly for the par-
ticipant to receive credit.
Solving the Equal-Partitioning: Fair-Sharing of
Discrete Quantities test item correctly requires under-
standing that a set of 12 can be divided into smaller
sets of equal quantity. One also needs to understand
the concept of ‘‘fair’’ or ‘‘equal’’ and be able to com-
pare sets and evaluate them for equality. Similar to the
two previously mentioned test items, children with
high mathematics ability were able to make and com-
pare sets of up to five items. They were engaged in the
telling of the story, as indicated by two participants
who commented on the names of the children in the
problem and tried to change them. Most children with
high mathematics ability responded either by stating
numbers from the problem as an answer or by count-
ing all the tokens available. One child, however, was
observed to make unequal sets. In contrast, children
with low mathematics ability responded with behav-
iors or comments unrelated to the problem; for exam-
ple, by explaining that you should dunk cookies in
milk before eating them.
418 Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 14:4 Fall 2009
Discussion
Acknowledging that hearing children did not partici-
pate in this study, an important finding is that, in
comparison to norms based on hearing children, even
prior to the onset of formal schooling, the majority of
the young deaf children who participated in this study
were already demonstrating substandard academic
performance in the area of early mathematics. This
finding however, must be accepted with caution in
recognition of the limitation that the majority of par-
ticipants received the test in a visually based language
rather that the standardized English version.
The depressed distribution of TEMA-3 scores for
children who participated in this study occurred de-
spite the fact that the majority of participants used
assistive listening devices, had deaf parents and, per-
haps most critically, at least good if not fluent exposure
to language in the home. Although deaf children with
deaf parents did perform significantly ‘‘better’’ on the
TEMA-3 than did participants with hearing parents,
this ‘‘better’’ was not enough to place them at a rank
higher than average according to the norm scores
established by the test. An important implication of
this finding is that language exposure may not be
enough to guarantee mathematical success in young
deaf children.
It is interesting to consider the learning behaviors
demonstrated by the children and how this might have
contributed to their overall performance. Particularly
on the most challenging test items, the children, those
with lower mathematical ability specifically, demon-
strated attention difficulties. They had difficulty fo-
cusing on the task at hand and were likely to engage
in off-task behaviors. As discussed previously, in re-
search conducted by Ansell and Pagliaro (2006), when
presented with story problems, deaf children in their
early years of formal schooling tended to focus on the
computation method used to solve the problem rather
than the story within. In examining children’s perfor-
mance on test items that included story problems in
the current study, there is some evidence that this
pattern of behavior may begin at an early age. Even
participants with ‘‘high’’ mathematical ability ap-
peared not to understand the relationship between
the numbers and the story in the problem—as dem-
onstrated by behaviors that ranged from counting
tokens in a manner that specified the quantities stated
in the problem (a behavior more likely to be demon-
strated by higher performing children) to inattentive
behaviors and token play (a behavior more likely to be
demonstrated by lower performing children).
Findings from the current study support the pos-
sibility suggested by Gregory (1998) that a factor con-
tributing to the low achievement levels demonstrated
by deaf students is the more restricted opportunities
for incidental learning experienced by young deaf chil-
dren. A deaf child with deaf parents who sign has the
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opportunity to learn incidentally through observation
of the conversations occurring around him/her, pro-
viding that she/he is attending to them. In contrast,
for the hearing child, this attending does not have to
occur explicitly. The hearing child can be playing in
his/her bedroom and still overhear a conversation oc-
curring in another room. Due to the nature of hearing
loss, deaf children (regardless of their parents’ hearing
status) have less constant exposure to information. For
this reason, it may take more time for them to acquire
the level of informal knowledge possessed by their
hearing peers, if they acquire it at all.
Restricted opportunities for incidental learning
experiences could be the reason that, for participants
in this study, the four most difficult test items were
classified as informal mathematics and included the
use of word/story problems. For some participants,
those with lower levels of mathematics ability specif-
ically, informal mathematics skills foundational to
successfully solving these test items were lacking;
for example, the ability to make sets, count, or make
number comparisons. In addition, children who dem-
onstrated lower levels of mathematics ability also
appeared to lack certain cognitive readiness skills es-
sential for early learning, the ability to focus and main-
tain attention for example. If informal mathematics
concepts and foundational cognitive skills have not
yet been mastered, then young deaf children are likely
to experience difficulty with the formal learning envi-
ronment they will encounter during their school years.
Lacking the required foundational concepts that for-
mal mathematics builds on, young deaf children may
experience difficulties with the concepts and skills that
they are required to learn in the academic classroom.

Implications
The findings from this study have important implica-
tions for parents and teachers of young deaf children.
Although fluent language exposure is a crucial com-
ponent of learning, it may not be enough to guarantee
mathematical success in young deaf children; rather,
what is done with language may be more important.
Use of high quality mediation, including frequently
asking cognitively challenging questions that encour-
age children to think, may be a critical factor in in-
creasing mathematics achievement levels.
Because deaf children may not be starting formal
schooling with the same knowledge as their hearing
peers, the curriculum used for instruction may also need
to differ. Teachers need to be aware of the foundational
concepts and skills behind the mathematical tasks pre-
sented to students. If a deaf child appears not to un-
derstand a particular mathematically based question,
task, or concept within the classroom setting then the
teacher needs to consider the reasons why. Such consid-
eration may involve analyzing the given task for neces-
sary foundational skills that the child may be lacking. In
addition, specific behaviors demonstrated by the child
should be assessed to evaluate the nature of his/her un-
derstanding; for example, the child’s awareness of when
a numerical response is appropriate, when one needs to
cognitively process and evaluate a story or situation be-
fore offering a response, and/or when one should count
or answer with a number fact. If the child behaves in-
appropriately in response to the given activity, by engag-
ing in off-task behaviors or offering unproductive
responses, this may be an indication that foundational
skills are lacking and need to be developed.
Findings from this study also suggest the need for
more contextually based mathematical problem solv-
ing, at the early childhood level in particular. Such
problem-solving activities might include opportunities
for making comparisons among entities (e.g., boys,
girls, colors of clothing, toys, etc.) and quantities
(e.g., distribution of stickers, cookies at snack time,
etc.), exploring conservation/number constancy—the
understanding that quantities remain the same despite
changes in perceptual appearance—by asking ques-
tions such as, ‘‘if we spread the cookies out on your
plate, will you have more?,’’ and purposeful counting/
Barely Started and Already Left Behind 419
use of numbers (e.g., there are 3 children, we need 3
cups for juice).
Need for Future Research
In order to ensure that young deaf children are not left
behind, research is needed to investigate the learning
opportunities available for these children prior to the
onset of formal schooling and the immediate and lon-
gitudinal impact of interventions designed to enhance
the quantity and quality of early learning opportuni-
ties available.
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As discussed elsewhere (Kritzer, 2009), in a later
facet of this study during a full day of observation,
parents were found to make limited references to
mathematics concepts in everyday activities. Even
when parents were given a task to complete with their
children that was mathematical in nature, limited
references were made to mathematics concepts
(Kritzer, 2008). More research is needed to describe
the early learning experiences that young deaf children
have access to within the home and other early learn-
ing environments in comparison to hearing peers. The
impact that use of assistive listening devices and access
to fluent exposure to sign language has on these early
opportunities would be a necessary component of re-
search in this area.
Intervention programs are needed to teach parents
how to mediate early mathematical concepts to their
young deaf children in the home. Children participat-
ing in such a program should be followed longitudi-
nally to assess whether early intervention in this area
has an impact on their later success during their for-
mal school years. Early interventionists and other
teachers of young deaf children could also benefit from
coursework in their preparation that focuses on en-
hancing parents’ abilities to create learning environ-
ments that stimulate the cognitive development of
young deaf children.
As findings from this study indicate, even in their
preschool years, when young deaf children have barely
started their education, they are already showing signs
of delay. As these children grow, it is likely that these
delays will persist, becoming more pervasive and in-
creasingly challenging to remediate. In order to make
a difference in the long-term achievement levels of
420 Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 14:4 Fall 2009
deaf individuals, intervention is necessary at the early
childhood level. If young deaf children are being left
behind before their formal education even begins, it is
unlikely that they will ever catch up.
Funding
University of Pittsburgh, Department of Education.
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accepted June 4, 2009.
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