ON THE RECALL OF HOMONYMOUS "KANJI" IN BLIND STUDENTS

Abstract

It is known that "Kanji" readers are easier than braille readers to understand homonymous "Kanji" words. The purpose of this study is to examine the difference between braille readers and "Kanji" readers to make them free recall homonymous "Kanji". The repports of this type of research have apparently not been published to date. Subjects are all students at the Tsukuba University. They are divided into braille reader group and "Kanji" reader group. And further each groups in classified in contact with "Kanji" as follows; 1. Braille group; A. Congenitally blind (14 students) B. Adventitiously blind (14 students) 2. Kanji group; C. Sighted (28 students) D. Partially sighted (39 students) The summary of the results is shown below; 1. The means of higher recall rates in "Kanji" group and Braille group are found in "Kanji" group, and the results by t-testing for the means of recall rates show 0.1 percent level of significance in all materials. 2. In four groups (A, B, C and D), the means of total number of words recalled are obtained: sighted; 101 words, partially sighted; 103 words, adventitiously blind; 80 words, congenitally blind; 69 words. 3. From the results described above, it seems to be right to consider that four ratios are 10; 10; 8; 7. 4. But there is no statiscally significance between sighted and partially sighted, also adventitiously blind and congenitally blind. 5. The ranking of reacll rates are C_≒_ D>B>A in all materials. 6. The strongest correlation to increase rate of recall is estimated that subjects had or not the experience using "Kanji". Further investigation is necessary, especially to investigate of the comprehension of homonymous "Kanji" in context.