Abstract

Purpose

Literature on children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) suggests overall increased rates of difficulties in emotional/behavioral and adaptive functioning. However, limitations of this literature include the failure to integrate issues unique to the experience of children who are DHH, such as home and school communication modalities and the consistency of modalities across settings.

Method

This study examined de-identified data from a clinical database. Data included caregiver ratings of emotional/behavioral and adaptive functioning in a diverse sample of clinically referred children who are DHH (N = 177). Caregivers also reported home and school communication modalities (e.g., match, partial match, different modalities). We examined mean score differences between our sample and normative samples and compared functioning across subgroups of children with various home-school communication modality combinations.

Results

Consistent with the literature, we found overall increased rates of emotional/behavioral and adaptive functioning concerns on parent rating scales. Emotional/behavioral concerns did not differ among children with spoken language match, sign language match, or partial match communication modalities combinations. Within adaptive functioning, communication and functional academics were significantly lower among children with partial match home-school communication modalities. Adaptive functioning did not differ between spoken language match and sign language match groups.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest possible benefits to adaptive functioning among children who are DHH when home and school communication modalities match, regardless of which modality is used.

中文翻译：

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沟通方式对聋哑儿童看护人评分的影响

摘要

目的

关于耳聋或听力障碍儿童 (DHH) 的文献表明，情绪/行为和适应功能的困难率总体上有所增加。然而，该文献的局限性包括未能整合 DHH 儿童经历的独特问题，例如家庭和学校交流方式以及不同环境下方式的一致性。

方法

这项研究检查了来自临床数据库的去识别数据。数据包括照顾者对 DHH 临床转诊儿童样本的情绪/行为和适应性功能的评分（N  = 177）。照顾者还报告了家庭和学校的交流方式（例如，匹配、部分匹配、不同的方式）。我们检查了我们的样本和规范样本之间的平均得分差异，并比较了具有各种家庭-学校交流方式组合的儿童亚组的功能。

结果

与文献一致，我们发现父母评分量表上情绪/行为和适应性功能问题的总体比例增加。口语匹配、手语匹配或部分匹配沟通方式组合的儿童的情绪/行为问题没有差异。在适应性功能中，具有部分匹配家庭学校交流方式的儿童的交流和功能学业显着降低。口语匹配组和手语匹配组之间的适应性功能没有差异。

结论

我们的研究结果表明，当家庭和学校的沟通方式匹配时，无论使用哪种方式，DHH 儿童的适应性功能都可能受益。