A study of certain fears and wishes among deaf and hearing children

The authors compared the responses of deaf and hearing public school children to a check list of 39 fears and to 7 sets of wishes which permitted a choice between a desire for immediate fulfillment of a small gratification and a delayed greater gratification. The deaf children reported more fears and expressed more often the desire for immediate gratification of a wish. The difference between deaf and hearing girls is much greater than that between deaf and hearing boys. Correlations between the scores on the fears and wishes tests and age, intelligence, age at becoming deaf, and per cent of hearing in the better ear were slight and in no case reliable.