Visual Attention in Deaf Children and Adults: Implications for Learning Environments

This chapter focuses on visual attention - the ability to select and concentrate on information entering the brain via the visual pathway - and how significant hearing loss may affect how visual information is selected and attended. Deaf children have been reported to be inattentive and easily distracted. However, it is argued that this may be a reflection of how they allocate attentional resources, as well as other factors such as linguistic competence and teacher-parent attributions, as opposed to a state of inattentiveness and attentional pathology per se. Behavioral research suggests that deaf individuals cannot help but be distracted by visual information in their peripheral vision.