gms | German Medical Science

Introduction: The aim of the study is to determinate the using dominant multiple intelligence types and compare the learning preferences of Turkish cochlear implanted children aged four to ten in Freiburg and Turkey according to Theory of Multiple Intelligence.

Methods: The study has been conducted on a total of 80 children and four groups. The applications have been done in Freiburg Cochlear Implant Center in Germany, and University of Hacettepe, ENT Department, Audiology and Speech Pathology Section in Turkey. To determine the dominant multiple intelligence types of children, the TIMI (Tele Inventory of Multiple Intelligences) which was developed by Sue Tele have been used.

Results: The study results exposed that there was not a statistically significant difference on dominant intelligence areas and averages of scores of multiple intelligence types in control groups (p>0.05). Although, the dominant intelligence areas were different (except for first dominant intelligence) in cochlear implanted children in Freiburg and Turkey, there was not a statistically significant difference on averages of scores of dominant multiple intelligence types. The first four dominant intelligence type of the cochlear implanted children in Freiburg, visual-spatial, musical-rhyhtmic, bodily-kinaesthetic and verbal-linguistic intelligence. For implanted children in Turkey, the first four dominant intelligence types are visual-spatial, logical-mathematical, intrapersonal, bodily-kinaesthetic and verbal-linguistic intelligence.

Conclusion: Every hearing impaired child who started training, should be evaluated in terms of Multiple Intelligence areas and identified strengths and weaknesses. Multiple intelligence activities should be used in their educational programs.