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'. . Pamphlet File Professional Library ( IMRC/'PH jj m ANNUAL REPORT: DEP^PTMENT OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH i^r ?. INTRODUCTION: *»*™*h™*™°Tut™"*^* BLINn LOUISVILLE. KENfDCKY Research this year has been concentrated in two general areas: Problems basic to Braille reading readiness and problems related to production of materials by the American Printing House. This dichotomy of research interest appears to be a very practical one. It allows research on basic educational problems to procede at a rate most appropriate for the present state of the art, and, at the same time, provides opportunity to investigate subjects that have practical significance for current prodiuctiun problems. Although this report will emphasize research completed during the past year and that planned for next year, this does not imply that activity was I restricted solely to these items, tfork was continued on the accumulation of a complete research bibliography for &fee field. This effort is still far from completion, and progress is oc?•::•: at a slower rate than at the time of last year's report. Speaking en tis and participation in professional meetings hatftalso taken up a sigs - - "- amount of time during the year. 1 , / RESEARCH COHDUCTSD DURING THE YEAR ENDING 30 JUNE 19>9 1. Stanford Achievement A ' letic Computation Tests: A new Braille Adapt Form J of the Arithmetic Computation Tests was ? tried out this year. Abo:- ite tests were administered to 77 third grade children, 70 fourth grade .... n, 57 sixth grade children, and 78 eighth children. Results indicate that the adaptation was adequate and that the I tests had sufficient reliability. They will henceforth he included in our Braille test "batteries. Blind children as a tp received scores lbfj below the test standards for sighted groups, and analy C the data revealed significant differences among schools in arithmetic bJlevement. These differepces are somewhat stable . throughout the grades alt::, b rat sa of progress among the schools in arithmetic appeared unequal. For achievement of some sixth grades surpassed >le., that of some eighth grades. differences and heterogeneity in progress . . are believed to be indicative eed for research in methods of teaching arithmetic to blind children. 2. Three studies were cor. rte which were part of the reading readiness . research program described :r. last year's report. a. Research on Word As • Lons: A previous study reporte bat blind children tended to use words unrealis- tically. This was inferre.. b: a Lining responses of blind children to 39 stimulus words. Excessive 2e on visual terminology was held to result in the formation of loose and valid concepts. Responsibility for this situation . was laid at the feet of edi : - f the blind. Since learning to read - res the association of concepts with printed symbols, the quality of the - -. -s icrmed by young blind children could have 2. serious implications for such learning. Therefore, verification of the previous results seemed important. This was achieved "by repeating the previous experiment using 55 congenitally "blind children from two residential schools. One change was made in that part of this group responded with free rather than controlled association. Children in the present study gave only 17$ visual responses to the stimulus words. This was a statistically significant lesser amount than for the previous study. Responses for 1000 sighted children were available for four of the stimulus words. Responses of "blind children in the present study were quite similar to these. It was concluded that excessive use of visual concepts was not a problem for the children studied. b. Roughness Discrimination Among Children in the Primary Grades: The purpose of this study was to determine if differences in ability to discriminate surface roughness exists among children in the age groups found in kindergarten through the primary grades. If so, a measure of roughness dis- . crimination might be used as a predictor of ability to learn to read Braille. The test used required children to pick out the rougher of two s%iall pieces of sandpaper mounted on a card. Fourteen grades of sandpaper were combined in order to give 27 different comparisons. Sixty-three children in grades kindergarten through four and ages 6-13 years were utilized as subjects in the study. No relationship was found between ability to discriminate roughness and chronological age. However, significant differences were found among grades for this ability. Finer discriminations were significantly easier for children in the upper grades. It was concluded that further work on this problem would be fruitful. c. Development of a Test of Small Form Perception: This study resulted in our only complete failure of the year. An attempt was made to develop a test of form perception which could be used to predict reading readiness. Briefly, the test required children to rapidly discriminate five small solids in a variety of sequences. It was found that test scores were almost completely dependent upon the intelligence of the subject and that the task was too difficult for children in kindergarten and the first grade. Further work in this area is contemplated. 3. Study of Type Characteristics: Periodically, questions are raised concerning the best type for use in production of large type textbooks. One such question concerns the relative superior- ity of 18 and 24 point type. Another deals with the type face itself. That is, 4 what style of type is most legible? This study was designed to investigate aspects of both problems simultaneously. In addition to comparing 18 with 24 point type, the study compared a common school book type (Antique with Old Style) with an experimental type. The experimental type was a sans-serif type with two special characteristics: (a) If the width of the limb of a lower case letter is taken as a unit, most letters will be found to be 4 units wide and 5 units high and (b) spacing between letters is two units. Reading speed was the index used to judge the differences between the variables. Two-hundred-sixty-four large type readers (ages 8-20 years, grades 4-12) from public and residential schools in Ohio, Illinois, and Kentucky participated in the study. One-half of this group was legally blind. For our purposes these children were randomly assigned to one of eight groups. A legally blind and non- legally blind group read each of four type combinations: 18 point school book type, 18 point experimental type, 24 point school book type, and 24 point experimental type. The reading speed test was an adaptation of. the .Gates Basic Reading Test, Grades 3-8> 1S'42 edition. The data were cast in a treatments x treatments x