Deaf college students' perceptions of their social-emotional adjustment

This study examined differences between deaf and hearing students' perceptions of their social emotional adjustment as they transition to college. The 16PF-Adolescent Personality Questionnaire Life Difficulties Scale was completed by 205 deaf students and 185 hearing students. A multivariate analyses of variance and subsequent univariate tests found that deaf students rated themselves as experiencing significantly higher home life difficulties than hearing students, and deaf students rated themselves as having fewer coping difficulties than hearing students. Results also revealed a hearing status by gender interaction with deaf females rating themselves significantly higher on worry than deaf males, hearing females, and hearing males. An exploratory factor analysis of the Life Difficulties subscales yielded three factors of life difficulties for deaf college students but only two factors for hearing college students. These findings suggest that there are differences between deaf and hearing students who are transitioning to college with regards to their social-emotional adjustment.     

Self-esteem and coping strategies among deaf students

Research studies on the determinants of self-esteem of deaf individuals often yield inconsistent findings. The current study assessed the effects on self-esteem of factors related to deafness, such as the means of communication at home and severity of hearing loss with hearing aid, as well as the coping styles that deaf people adopt to cope with everyday life in a hearing world. Data were collected among the deaf students of California State University, Northridge. Hierarchical regression modeling showed that identification with the Deaf community significantly contributed to positive self-esteem. Results also revealed that deaf students with greater degree of hearing loss and with bicultural skills that help them function in both the hearing and the Deaf community generally have higher self-esteem. Implications for further study are discussed.     

Influences of student and family factors on academic outcomes of mainstream secondary school deaf students

This article considers some of the student and family factors influencing the educational achievements of deaf children. It is based on a study of 16-year-old deaf students in mainstream schools in England. Findings indicate the complexity of interpreting statistical results, especially on the effect of degree of hearing loss. The discussion addresses the specific question of why this factor is often reported as not significant in academic achievement. It also considers the surprisingly low effect of family socioeconomic status, speculates on the size of the "school effect" in deaf education, and considers the coding of data.     

Social participation of children and adolescents with cochlear implants: a qualitative analysis of parent, teacher, and child interviews

Psychosocial factors, including socioemotional well-being, peer relationships, and social inclusion with hearing and deaf peers, are increasingly becoming a focus of research investigating children with cochlear implants. The study reported here extends the largely quantitative findings of previous research through a qualitative analysis of interviews with parents, teachers, and pediatric cochlear implant users themselves in three eastern states of Australia. We interviewed 24 parents, 15 teachers, and 11 children and adolescents. The findings displayed commonalities across the three groups of participants, indicating positive experiences around the children's psychosocial development with their cochlear implants, but also ongoing difficulties communicating in groups of people and problems related to social skills. Some children had little contact with other deaf children (with or without cochlear implants) despite parents and teachers perceiving such contact beneficial. Children attending schools where there were other deaf children valued friendships with both deaf and hearing peers. Adolescence was a particularly difficult time for some as they struggled with feelings of self-consciousness about their deafness and external cochlear implant equipment and worries around friendships, dating, and their future place in the world. Recommendations for practice and further research are made.     

The social adjustment of deaf adolescents in segregated parially integrated and mainstreamed settings

This study examined the social adjustment of deaf adolescents enrolled in segregated (&egr; = 39), partially integrated (&egr; = 15), and mainstreamed (&egr; = 17) settings, comparing them with a control group of hearing students (&egr; = 88). Segregated students showed the lowest levels of adjustment overall. Partially integrated students reported better adjustment overall. Partially integrated students reported better adjustment than mainstreamed students with deaf peers; mainstreamed students reported better adjustment than partially integrated students with hearing peers, showing the same levels of adjustment with hearing peers as hearing students. Regardless of placement, deaf students reported better or equal adjustment with deaf than with hearing peers. Social adjustment with deaf peers was related to American Sign Language (ASL) skill and adjustment with hearing peers to spoken English. These findings suggest tht deaf students can benefit from both segregated and integrated placements as complememtary forms of social experience that each contribute to overal adjustment.     

Social processes and outcomes of in-school contact between deaf and hearing peers

Studies of social processes and outcomes of the placement of deaf students with hearing peers cannot be easily summarized, but can be grouped into a least four major categories of focus: social skills, interaction and participation, sociometric status and acceptance, and affective functioning. We review 33 studies available since 1980 in which a mainstreamed or included deaf sample was compared to another group. Studies indicated (1) that hearing students were more socially mature than deaf students in public schools, (2) that deaf students interacted with deaf classmates more than hearing ones, (3) that deaf students were somewhat accepted by their hearing classmates, and (4) that self-esteem was not related to extent of mainstreaming. There was a tendency for studies to use observational methods with very young children, teacher evaluations with middle school children, and questionnaires with older children. Three major areas of methodology limit general conclusions: samples, measurements of variables, and experimental manipulations. The reviewed studies provide a basis for understanding the social processes and outcomes in these placement situations; however, it is not possible to make broad generalizations about effects of placement.     

Welcome to the real world: reflections on teaching and administration

The author compares his former position as an assistant professor in a program preparing future teachers of deaf and hard of hearing students with his present position as an administrator of a public school program serving these students. He maintains that in some ways, teacher training programs in deafness and the public school settings hiring these graduates are separate worlds. The emphasis in teacher training programs appears to be on preparing graduates to work with deaf students in self-contained or residential school settings even though most teaching positions are with hard of hearing students mainstreamed in public schools. Other important areas, such as collaboration with general education teachers, litigation, parental relationships, and individualized education programs, seem to be overlooked by teacher training programs. The author employs the mockingbird metaphor from the novel To Kill A Mockingbird (Lee, 1960) to highlight differences between teacher training programs and public school settings, while making recommendations for strengthening connections between the two.     

Does deafness lead to enhancement of visual spatial cognition in children? Negative evidence from deaf nonsigners

This study investigated whether deafness contributes to enhancement of visual spatial cognition independent of knowledge of a sign language. Congenitally deaf school children in India who were born to hearing parents and were not exposed to any sign language, and matched hearing controls, were given a test of digit span and five tests that measured visual spatial skills. The deaf group showed shorter digit span than the hearing group, consistent with previous studies. Deaf and hearing children did not differ in their performance on the visual spatial skills test, suggesting that deafness per se may not be a sufficient factor for enhancement of visual spatial cognition. Early exposure to a sign language and fluent sign skills may be the critical factors that lead to differential development of visual spatial skills in deaf people.     

Approaches to studying in deaf and hearing students in higher education

We conducted a survey to compare the responses of 149 deaf students and 121 hearing students taking the same courses to a shortened and adapted version of the Approaches to Studying Inventory. In general, the impact of deafness on approaches to studying was relatively slight, and deaf students appeared to be at least as capable as hearing students of engaging with the underlying meaning of the materials to be learned. We used factor analysis to identify eight scales, and differences between the two groups were statistically significant on four of these scales. Discriminant analysis indicated that deaf students found it more difficult to relate ideas on different topics and that this was more marked in those who preferred to communicate using sign. However, deaf students were more likely than hearing students to adopt a critical approach and to analyze the internal structure of the topics studied.     

Syntactic and semantic processing in Hebrew readers with prelingual deafness

The experimenter investigated the effect of semantic clues on the reading comprehension of deaf and hearing Israeli children. Two groups of students with prelingual deafness, and a hearing control group, were asked to read syntactically simple and syntactically relative sentences of varying semantic plausibility. Sixteen of the participants who were deaf (mean grade 6.9) had been trained orally, using spoken language as their principal means of communication at home and at school. Another 16 students with deafness (mean grade 6.9), all of them children of deaf parents, had acquired sign language as their primary language. The mean grade of the hearing control group was 6.5. The results suggest that, in contrast to the case with hearing individuals, reading comprehension in individuals with prelingually acquired deafness, regardless of communication background, is predominantly determined by the semantic processing of content words, with only minor attention given to the processing of the syntactic structure of the text.     

Acceptance of deaf students by hearing students in regular classrooms

Peer relations are of great importance during adolescence. Belonging to a group and feelings of acceptance or rejection by other members are paramount. The article explores the attitudes of 792 hearing students from 10 to 20 years of age in 22 different schools in Spain toward the classroom mainstreaming of deaf students. In general terms, the results, obtained from a scale similar to the Likert and consisting of 19 questions, show that the deaf student is well received socially by hearing classmates. Hearing students in general felt that deaf students might be better looked after at a special school and that deaf students did not work as hard as hearing students. Young female hearing students reported the strongest support for mainstreaming of deaf students. Teachers were perceived as dedicated and patient.     

Self-esteem scores among deaf college students: an examination of gender and parents' hearing status and signing ability

Overall, research studies of self-esteem and deafness yield inconsistent findings. Some studies indicate a higher incidence of low self-esteem among deaf individuals than among hearing individuals (Bat-Chava, 1994; Mulcahy, 1998; Schlesinger, 2000). Other findings suggest that one must examine this complex phenomenon more closely to understand how deafness influences self-concept and self-esteem (Bat-Chava, 2000; Emerton, 1998; Foster, 1998; Munoz-Baell & Ruiz, 2000; Stone, 1998). This study asked whether self-esteem scores are significantly different among deaf college students compared across groups based on gender and parents' hearing status and signing ability. The construct of self-esteem was measured by the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, administered using an American Sign Language-translated videotape. Results revealed that gender, age, and the interaction of parent by gender were nonsignificant. However, respondents who had at least one deaf parent and signed scored significantly higher than those with hearing parents who could not sign and those with hearing parents who could sign. Overall, self-esteem scores for all respondents were high. Implications for further study are discussed.     

Ethnic, gender, and age preferences among deaf and hearing preschool peers

The present study concerns ethnic, age, and gender playmate preferences of deaf and hearing preschoolers who were observed during outdoor free play at their respective schools over a 7-month period. Hispanic, black, and white children were included. It was hypothesized that peer preferences would be less apparent among deaf children than among hearing children if these preferences were based on (a) language differences between ethnic groups (e.g., Spanish-English differences), age groups (e.g., verbal fluency differences), or gender groups; or (b) cultural values communicated by speech. Both deaf and hearing children preferred to play with children of the same ethnicity, gender, and age as themselves. In addition, play among children of the same ethnicity, gender, and age was qualitatively different from play among children of different ethnicity, gender, and age. The only effect of deafness was to decrease the amount of gender segregation that occurred. The results suggest that the development of ethnic, gender, and age playmate preferences is not dependent on intergroup language differences or spoken cultural messages. Several nonlinguistic factors that might contribute to early peer preferences are discussed.     

开设语言课 提高聋校学生的书面语言能力

聋校学生的书面语言能力主要通过语文课的教学获得。然而 ,经过多年语文课的学习 ,很多聋校学生的书面语言能力仍然很低下 ,成为提高文化知识的一大障碍。其根本原因在于 ,聋校的语文课基本上是参照普通中小学的语文课经过一定调整而来 ,但普通中小学学生是在已经获得了基本的口语能力之后开始语文课的学习。由于聋生缺乏相应的口语基础 ,现行语文课的教学并不能保证根本改变聋生书面语言水平低下的状况。发展聋生基本的语言能力应该通过语言课。在开始语文课的教学之前先开设语言课是解决问题的途径。语言课与语文课具有不同的性质和任务。语言课应选择适合自身任务的教学内容 ,并遵循适合聋校学生语言发展规律的教学原则     

A comparative perspective on the experiences of deaf and hard of hearing individuals as students at mainstream and special schools

Integration of individuals categorized as having special educational needs in mainstream schools has become a dominant policy in many countries. Changes in recent years in the field traditionally called "special education" have significantly influenced the education of deaf and hard of hearing individuals. The movements against segregation and toward integration and, more recently, inclusion, have created the conditions for educational changes, not only in mainstreaming but in special education. The article brings to light the views and experiences of deaf and hard of hearing people as students at special schools and mainstream schools, in order to compare the two systems from the viewpoints of those involved and to explore the possible implications of these views and experiences for the development of the educational system in Cyprus regarding inclusive education. Particular attention is given to improvement of the education of deaf and hard of hearing children.     

The educational attainments of deaf students in mainstream programs in England: examination results and influencing factors.

The author reports findings of an investigation into educational outcomes of 16-year-old deaf students in mainstream programs in England in 1995 and 1996. Data on examination results, communication competence, and social acceptance were collected by questionnaire and analyzed against several background factors. All the background factors investigated contributed an effect of about 20% on examination results, emphasizing the need to investigate the effect of other factors. Relatively strong predictors of examination success were family socioeconomic status, presence of any additional learning difficulty, whether English was used as a main language in the home, age at onset of deafness, and parents' hearing status. Degree of hearing loss did not appear to have an important effect on examination success but was linked to other outcomes. The discussion considers how different codings of examination success can affect the results obtained from statistical analysis. Findings on the ethnic status of deaf students are also noted.     

ASL and the family system.

This paper examines some of the sociological implications of poor interaction on families in which one of the members is deaf. When a family systems perspective is used, once a child is diagnosed as deaf the family is no longer considered "hearing"; the parents may be hearing, the other children may be, but the family system becomes "hearing and deaf." By viewing this as a hearing/deaf problem, it becomes clear that no adequate solution can be found without the participation of deaf adults and the benefit of their perspectives and insights. We suggest that attention be directed toward neutralizing the effects of the stigma associated with deafness so that American Sign Language can become a pivotal tool for facilitating functional symbolic interaction in hearing/deaf families.     

Communication mode and the processing of printed words: evidence from readers with prelingually acquired deafness

The aim of this study was to elucidate how the primary communication background of prelingual deafened readers affects the way they mediate the recognition of written words. A computer-controlled research paradigm (a semantic decision task) asking for the categorization of familiar Hebrew nouns was used to investigate the participants' sensibility to phonological and orthographic manipulations in the target stimuli. Two groups of readers with hearing impairments and a hearing control group participated in the study. Twenty-seven of the participants with deafness (mean grade 6.9) were raised by hearing parents advocating a strict oral approach at home and at school. For an additional 22 students who were deaf (mean grade 6.9), the majority of them children of deaf parents, Israeli Sign Language was the preferred means of communication. The mean grade of the 39 participants in the hearing control group was 6.5. Findings indicate that both the hearing participants and the participants with prelingual deafness who were trained to communicate orally recoded visually presented target words phonologically. No such evidence was found for participants with deafness who were native signers. Although participants from signing backgrounds seemed to generate nonphonological representations of written words, there was no evidence that for them, the absence of recoding to phonology detrimentally affected on their ability to process such representations flexibly. In all, findings suggest a causal link between an individual's processing strategy for some written words and the modal nature of his or her primary language.     

Smoking and deaf adults: associations with age at onset of deafness

Smoking is a major health problem whose prevalence in different populations is thought to be influenced by sociocultural and linguistic factors. Although smoking and hearing loss are positively correlated, little is known about the smoking habits of deaf populations. Using national survey data, this study determined the smoking prevalence in two socioculturally distinct deaf populations, based on age at onset of deafness. The smoking prevalence in each deaf population was compared to the smoking prevalence in the hearing population in multivariate analyses that adjusted for sociodemographics and health status. The smoking prevalence among postlingually deafened adults was not significantly different from that among hearing adults. Prelingually deafened adults were found to be less likely to smoke than hearing adults, even though they have less education and lower income, factors both associated with higher smoking prevalence in other populations. The lower smoking prevalence among prelingually deafened adults may be due to cultural differences or to limited access to English-language tobacco advertising.     

The prevalence of boredom proneness and depression among profoundly deaf residential school adolescents.

We investigated boredom proneness and depression among 50 profoundly deaf residential school adolescents using the Boredom Proneness (BP) scale and a version of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) that has been modified for use with deaf subjects. Consistent with previous research, the deaf students had a significantly higher incidence of depression than the hearing students. In addition, the deaf students were found to be significantly more boredom prone than the hearing subjects. The results suggest that deafness not only increases a person's vulnerability to mild levels of depression, but also tends to augment one's tendency toward experiencing boredom. Implications for educational settings and areas for future research are discussed.