Disability or language barrier? Attitudes towards deafness among hearing parents of children with hearing impairment

Abstract

The aim of the following article was to investigate the attitudes towards different aspects of deafness among hearing parents of children with hearing impairment. It was hypothesized that the valence of the attitude correlates with various factors, for instance: parents’ level of education, child’s age and number of other people with hearing loss known by the parents. For the purpose of this research, a 32-item scale, based on the theory of dualistic models of attitudes was created. Positive attitudes were associated with preference for sociocultural perspective on deafness, including respect for child’s preferred communication method, acceptance for sign language, perceiving people with hearing loss as able-bodied. Contrarily, negative perspective was related to the medical perspective on deafness, which includes insisting on curing deafness and treating it as a disability which requires supportive solutions e.g. hearing aids or cochlear implants. Neither of the two models appeared dominant. Further analyses were addressed to explore parents’ knowledge and beliefs about hearing impairment.