A Comparison of Semantic and Episodic Memory in Deaf and Hearing Students

This study aimed to compare episodic and semantic memory in deaf and hearing students. In total, 72 deaf and hearing students from first and second grade of high school, male and female, randomly selected to be tested in this study. The tests contained verbal, subject-performed, imaginary tasks, free recall and cued recall adopted for evaluating episodic memory. The semantic memory measured by word fluency (alphabet words and semantic categories) test. Strict and lenient scoring method was used for evaluating remembrance ratio of nouns, verbs and complete sentences. The results of cued recall (verb) (P=0/0171) and alphabet words test (P=0/001) showed memory deficiency in deaf students. Surprisingly, the hearing and deaf students gained equal scores in cued recall(noun) test, semantic categories and free recall test; and, even later they showed better ability in this respect. the results indicated that the girl population showed better performance for episodic memory (P=0/0332 &P=0/001) and equal performance for semantic memory comparing with boys. Based on the results of this study, deaf people's memory deficiency is mainly in remembrance phase and if they are given contexual support (i.e. cue), they may show better performance.