Factors Affecting Psychosocial Adjustment of Deaf Students

Abstract

Deafness is more than a medical condition. Recent theories have emphasized the importance of environmental factors on the psychosocial development of deaf children. As part of a larger scale study, this article aims to investigate the impact of the following variables on deaf students' psychosocial adjustment in Turkey: student-related background and experiential characteristics, parent-related variables, school-related factors, and teacher-related variables. The sample of 1,097 deaf students enrolled in the elementary, secondary, and high schools was drawn from 34 schools in 24 cities on a national geographical spread. The multiple regression analysis revealed that degree of hearing loss, additional handicap, and age at onset of deafness were negatively related to psychosocial adjustment of deaf students. However, there was a positive relationship between psychosocial variables and some of the independent variables, such as use of hearing aids, speech intelligibility, academic achievement, parental hearing status, and communication methods used at school. The findings of the study do not support a "pathological" view of deafness, suggesting that it was not deafness per se but that some environmental factors were also influential on the psychosocial adjustment of deaf students.

Social skills in preschool children with unilateral and mild bilateral hearing loss

“…Although in contrast to the majority of previous research Polat, 2003;Van Eldik, 2005), our finding seems robust, as it remains even after controlling for a variety of possibly confounding factors. Moreover, the HH group differed significantly from the TH group, which did not exhibit the same gender pattern.…”

“…Though language problems tend to be more severe in children with profound hearing loss than in HH children (Fitzpatrick, Crawford, Ni, & Durieux-Smith, 2011), the association between degree of hearing loss and psychosocial problems is less clear. Whereas one study reports little relationship between degree of hearing loss and prevalence of diagnosable mental health problems ), another study suggests that higher degree of hearing loss predicted psychosocial adjustment problems in elementary, secondary, and high school students (Polat, 2003). To complicate further, HH children may even suffer more than those with profound hearing loss; in a study by , parents of 7-to 8-year-old children with milder hearing loss reported lower health-related quality of life for their children, as compared to parents of children with more severe losses.…”

Relacije kulturnog identiteta i samopoštovanja, zadovoljstva životom te psihičkog zdravlja gluhih i nagluhih osoba.

“…Kod djece kod koje je prisutna visoka razina ovladanosti znakovnim i govornim jezikom nije uočena veća učestalost psihosocijalnih poteškoća od one u njihovih čujućih vršnjaka (Sinkkonen, 1994;Polat, 2003). Djeca koja ne mogu uspješno komunicirati s okolinom, posebno s članovima obitelji i vršnjacima, četiri su puta više pogođena teškoćama u psihičkom zdravlju te su česte žrtve zlostavljanja.…”

Exploring the experiences of teenagers with cochlear implants

“…In the largest study to investigate this area, Polat (2003) investigated the impact of student background and experience, parent-related variables, school-related and teacher-related variables on the psychosocial adjustment of over 1,000 deaf children in Turkey. An observational scale for measuring social and emotional adjustment and self-image in deaf students (the Meadow/Kendall Social and Emotional Adjustment Inventory (SEAI) was administered by teachers and other educational professionals.…”