Visual–spatial representation in mathematical problem-solving by deaf and hearing students

This research examined the use of visual–spatial represen-tation by deaf and hearing students while solving mathe-matical problems. The connection between spatial skills and success in mathematics performance has long been estab-lished in the literature. This study examined the distinction between visual–spatial ‘‘schematic’ ’ representations that encode the spatial relations described in a problem versus visual–spatial ‘‘pictorial’ ’ representations that encode only the visual appearance of the objects described in a problem. A total of 305 hearing (n 5 156) and deaf (n 5 149) partic-ipants from middle school, high school, and college partic-ipated in this study. At all educational levels, the hearing students performed significantly better in solving the math-ematical problems compared to their deaf peers. Although the deaf baccalaureate students exhibited the highest per