Predicting Family Communication Choices

Abstract

The selection of a mode of communication by members of a family with a deaf child is a critical decision in the life of that family since it will condition how the family will be able to function in the future. However, while some writers have considered the outcomes of this decision, there is little information on factors that influence the decision. The purpose of this study was to examine why families developed one pattern of communication rather than another. The data came from the parents of 192 deaf adolescents who responded to a nationally distributed questionnaire. Results suggest that the mother takes the lead in determining the family's choice of a mode of communication. The single largest influence on the mother's mode of communication was the child's degree of hearing loss, followed by the child's mode of preschool education and the mother's level of education. The implications of this study for those who wish to promote the use of manual communication in families with a deaf child is to target mothers, particularly those who are less well educated, for intervention and training programs.

Speech, Sign, or Multilingualism for Children With Hearing Loss: Quantitative Insights Into Caregivers' Decision Making

“…Young et al also suggested that caregivers' abilities to make informed choices for their children with hearing loss is greatly impacted by both the nature of the information that they receive for this purpose and the actual conception of what informed choice means for these caregivers. Caregiver difficulty with decision making was also identified by Kluwin and Gaustad (1991), who suggested delineating decisions that were conscious and those that were default (a course of action that is followed as a result of no decision being made by the caregiver).…”

“…Eight studies were identified in which the authors specifically set out to examine how caregivers of children with hearing loss made decisions about communication (see Table 1; Borum, 2012;Decker, Vallotton, & Johnson, 2012;Guiberson, 2013;Kluwin & Gaustad, 1991;Watson, Hardie, Archbold, & Wheeler, 2008;Wheeler, Archbold, Hardie, & Watson, 2009). Some of these studies examined influences on decision making related to a specific child characteristic (e.g., children using cochlear implants, described in Wheeler et al, 2009) or type of influence (e.g., culture, as in Borum, 2012).…”

“…Children's degree of hearing loss, age of diagnosis, and device use have been found to be influential in some studies Kluwin & Gaustad, 1991;Li et al, 2003;Wheeler et al, 2009), but not influential (Decker et al, 2012) or not mentioned (Borum, 2012) in others. Having a disability in addition to hearing loss was reported to be influential by ; however, children with additional needs are excluded from many studies (e.g., Li et al, 2003).…”

Communication between Parents and Deaf Children: Implications for Social‐emotional Development

“…Similarly, the fact that most hearing parents who do sign are limited to relatively concrete conversation probably becomes increasingly important as their child matures and needs and wants explanations for more complex social and emotional issues. During this time, it is mothers tend who tend to take on the key role in family communication (Kluwin & Gaustad, 1991Kluwin & Stinson, 1993), being more likely to learn to sign and thus more frequent than fathers in their communications with their 798 C. VACCARI and M. MARSCHARK deaf children (Gregory & Hindley, 1996;Marschark, 1997).…”

The identification of early factors related to academic achievement among deaf students

“…Which method of communication to use with deaf children has been an area of contention for more than 200 years. Research has shown that the largest single influence on the mode of communication a mother chooses is related to the child's degree of hearing loss (Kluwin, Gaustad & Gonter, 1991).…”