Resilience in Deafness, Adolescence and Gender.

Abstract

Deaf and hearing Adolescents are facing the adversity of life like social expectations, academic and economic demands. The purpose of this study was to describe deaf and female adolescents' resilience with their respective counterparts using the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-25). Methods: The study was conducted on 160 adolescent (80 deaf [40 female] and 80hearing [40 female]) students who were selected based on multistage sampling. Quantitative and qualitative data collections were made through the questionnaire as well as interview. The study employed Mean, Standard Deviation, independent t-test, and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The results revealed that hearing adolescent students' average resilience score was significantly greater than deaf students. It was also shown that female adolescent students' level of average resilience score was found significantly less than their counterparts. Analysis of variance revealed that there was a significant difference in resilience score among deaf female, deaf male, hearing female, and hearing male adolescent students in which deaf female adolescent students' resilience score was the lowest. The difference in resilience between deaf and hearing students signified deaf students' capability to cope with stressors and academic demands was less than their counterparts, and the resilience of deaf female students was found the lowest among the groups. This calls for health and psychological professional and families to provide adequate support for deaf and female adolescents to develop resilience.