Abstract
Victimization is a relatively common, yet serious problem, with potentially severe consequences for children's psychosocial and academic functioning. Children who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing (DHH) may be at a higher risk for victimization than hearing children. The aims of the present study were to compare DHH and hearing children on i) self-reported experiences of victimization and ii) associations between victimization, parental- and child variables. In total 188 children (mean age 11;11 years) from the Netherlands and Dutch-speaking part of Belgium participated in the study. No difference between DHH and hearing children were found on general experiences of victimization. However, differences between the groups were found on specific forms of experienced victimization and on the associations between victimization and parental variables. For DHH children, parental sensitivity and parents who challenge their DHH children to become competent in the practical, emotional, cognitive and social domain is associated with them being less victimized. For hearing children at this age these relations were reversed, absent or more complex. Finally, DHH children in special schools were more victimized than DHH children in regular schools. It can be concluded that parents can play an important role in reducing social problems experienced by DHH children and young adolescents.
Highlights
Deaf or Hard of Hearing (DHH) children might be at greater risk for victimization than hearing youth [1]
Univariate tests with Bonferroni correction revealed that DHH children, but not their parents, reported a lower score on Parental Sensitivity than hearing children (F(1,186) = 14.66, p,.001, partial g2 = .07; see Table 3 for the mean values)
Gender differences T-tests were carried out to examine gender differences. These analyses showed no differences on Victimization between boys and girls, both within the total sample (t(186) = 2.01; p = .99), as within the samples of DHH children (t(92) = 2.38; p = .71) and hearing children (t(92) = .43; p = .67)
Summary
Deaf or Hard of Hearing (DHH) children might be at greater risk for victimization than hearing youth [1]. Chronic peer victimization increases the risk for various problems (e.g., anxiety, depression, and poor academic performance) during childhood and adolescence [2,3,4], and in adulthood [5]. It is vital to understand the processes that underlie or protect against victimization during childhood and early adolescence. Past literature on hearing children and adolescents has suggested that both the home environment (e.g., parental behavior) and individual aspects (e.g., emotion regulation) are related to peer victimization [6]. The present study has two objectives: 1) to examine whether (subsamples of) DHH and hearing youngsters differ in prevalence of self-reported victimization; and 2) to analyze the impact of environmental and individual aspects on victimization among children who are DHH versus hearing children
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