The Inner World of Adolescent Girls with Hearing Impairment

Abstract

This article explores how young females with hearing impairment respond to the developmental tasks of adolescence. Using a case study approach, the author explores Radha and Hasina's understanding and attitudes towards issues such as bodily changes, peer relationships, autonomy, economic independence, marriage and family, and personal identity. The limitations imposed by the impairment, combined with the environment to which they are exposed, may not be conducive to normal development. So, while on the one hand adolescents with hearing impairment face the same developmental needs and tasks that confront hearing adolescents, yet their passage through normal developmental stages may become more complicated. This is because the basic deprivation due to deafness is not just the sensory one of sound, but also the acquisition of communication skills. Nonetheless, instead of submitting meekly to their disability and the authority of their families, both Radha and Hasina emerge as self-assertive, individualistic and high-spirited persons who contest popular negative stereotypes of persons with disabilities. The article does not claim that the ideas contained in the two accounts are in any way representative of and equally applicable to all deaf adolescents. It is only an exploratory study, an attempt to throw light on the impact of deafness on the developmental tasks of adolescents with hearing impairment.

Exploring the Strategies to Empower the Mothers of Adolescent Girls with Hearing Impairment to Deal with their Social and Emotional Problems

“…Bhuvaneswari and Immanuel (2013) have reported in a study prevalence of stress, anxiety, and aggression among adolescent girls with hearing impairment. According to (Limaye, 2008), hearing impairment among adolescent girls complicated the issues such as bodily changes, peer relationships, autonomy, economic independence, marriage, family, and personal identity. The problem in speech and language has a great impact on the mental health (Toseeb, Vincent, Oginni, Asbury, & Newbury, 2023) of such girls that gradually promotes the social challenges while dealing at a wider community level.…”

Women with Disability and Reproductive Rights: Deconstructing Discourses

“…Living in institutions for disabled persons or living restricted lives within the four walls of their homes reduces their opportunities for social interaction and developing relationship skills. Limaye’s (2008) case studies of two young, hearing impaired adolescent girls highlight how the ‘communication bottlenecks’ they face in a world which privileges the hearing affects their self-worth and the pressures to ‘fit in’. Radha and Hasina resent the restrictions and limitations imposed on them by their families owing to their gender and disability, and actively strive to forge friendships and romantic relationships with other hearing impaired people, revealing their need to engage with the world in the same way as their non-disabled peers.…”

“…Contemporary feminist scholarship has sought to address this issue and bring to light the lived experiences of women with disability facing both patriarchy and 'ableism'. 2 The work of feminist scholars such as Addlakha (2008aAddlakha ( , 2008bAddlakha ( , 2013, Davar (1999Davar ( , 2001, Dhanda (2000Dhanda ( , 2008, Ghai (2002Ghai ( , 2003, Hans and Patri (2003), Hans (2015), Limaye (2008Limaye ( , 2015, Ghosh (2013), Mehrotra (2004Mehrotra ( , 2006Mehrotra ( , 2013, Mehrotra andNayar (2013, 2015), to name a few, can be cited in this context. The recent edited volume by Hans (2015) situates itself against the backdrop of changing gender relationships, emerging 'trajectories of power' and a global human rights regime exemplified by treaties such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).…”