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Abstract
Despite the fact that creative thinking abilities and cognitive abilities are well-researched topics with nondisabled persons of different ages, there have been no attempts to study several creative thinking abilities and reasoning abilities of deaf children in a cohesive conceptualization, nor to compare these abilities of deaf children to those of hearing children. In this context then, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between creative thinking abilities and reasoning abilities for deaf and hearing children. Two instruments were used in the study: The Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking-Figural, Form A and the Matrix Analogies Test- Expanded Form. Two groups of participants were chosen: Deaf children (n=210) and hearing children (n=200). Both groups were chosen based on specific criteria. Correlational research was chosen to conduct the investigation in this study. Analyses of the data were done using canonical correlation analyses to estimate the relationship between the six creative thinking abilities and the four reasoning abilities of both deaf and hearing children. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to estimate the differences between deaf and hearing children in the four reasoning abilities and the differences between deaf and hearing children in the six creative thinking abilities. Results of the study revealed that there are no differences between deaf and hearing children in the four reasoning abilities. The canonical correlation analysis revealed that deaf and hearing children differ in only one variable (abstraction of titles) of creative thinking abilities. On the other hand, teachers showed stronger beliefs that testing accommodations provided to students with deafness are fair and that these scores are comparable to scores obtained by nondisabled students without accommodations. These results are discussed within a validity framework and future research is outlined on extended time as an accommodation.