Abuse and deaf children: Some factors to consider

Deaf children are uniquely disadvantaged in terms of access to information on safety and abuse. This is often due to misunderstood linguistic and cultural needs which relate to the deaf community. Consequently, a greater number of children who are deaf are placed in potentially abusive situations when compared to their non-deaf peer group. A high percentage of deaf children have also acquired negative self-concepts. This is often due to external influences such as educational experiences and family communication. Many deaf children believe that abuse is part of their being deaf. The implications of this are that deaf children are at risk of neglect and abuse as well as long-term damage to their emotional development and self-esteem. A number of survivors of physical and sexual abuse have been referred to the National Centre for Mental Health and Deafness, Preston. Some of these referrals have been inappropriate and due to a dearth of local resources. Extremely little support is available for deaf people who have been or are being abused. There are few appropriately trained counsellors equipped with the necessary skills in communicating with deaf people and even fewer trained in deaf awareness. A number of risk factors have been identified and are illustrated in this article. Three case studies are described to highlight the issues involved.     

Deaf or hard of hearing inmates in prison

Despite laws in the United States enacted to protect individuals with disabilities in prison, there is ample case law to demonstrate that the intent of these laws has not been achieved. Using the existing US legal and social science literatures and experiences, this article considers: the problems hearing-impaired offenders face in prison that are not encountered by non-deaf or hard of hearing inmates; the services and accommodations prisons provide for deaf or hard of hearing inmates so that they can function at least as well as non-deaf or hard of hearing inmates; and the types of scientific research that should be conducted to understand the possible types of deaf or hard of hearing experiences in prisons, the consequences of these experiences, and the best way to address pathological sequela of being deaf or hard of hearing in prison. We argue that the creation of rules to protect this population is of no value unless these laws are implemented as intended. Without monitoring the law in action and studying why the intent of the law may be thwarted, an atmosphere in which deaf or hard of hearing offenders are neglected and even abused will likely occur.     

Orphanage caregivers' perceptions of children's emotional needs

Problems in orphan care are endemic in sub-Saharan Africa where 80% of all children orphaned by AIDS live. Institutions are often the only level of care available for infant orphans, but such care may increase children's risk for psychological, emotional and developmental problems. This study explores Ghanaian institutional caregivers' views of children's emotional and relational needs with the aim of understanding these caregivers' capacities to provide effective care for orphans. Qualitative data was gathered from 92 staff at eight Ghanaian orphanages. Results indicate that while caregivers describe a basic understanding of children's emotional and interpersonal needs, they detail a lack of training and support necessary to fully attend to these needs. Specifically, training for caregivers regarding children's basic attachment needs and the particular emotional needs of orphaned children is critical. The present study suggests the need for training and interventions to strengthen orphanage caregivers' capacity to provide effective orphan care.     

You’re Deaf? Breaking through Myths for Effective Therapeutic Practice

ABSTRACT

Most mental health practitioners provide services to hearing clients and might be unprepared when a deaf individual requests services. The purpose of this article is to explore commonly held stereotypes and myths about deaf people and to provide guidance to clinicians who encounter deaf clients in their practices. Myths and stereotypes can affect the way clinicians perceive their clients’ needs. This can lead to miscommunication, misunderstanding, and misinformation, which can harm the therapeutic relationship, thus making effective therapy unattainable. Clinicians should reframe these beliefs and overcome barriers to make way for the therapeutic process to begin.     

Social Work with Groups,Helen Northen. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969. 270 Pages. $7.50 Hardbound

In 1970 Gallaudet College initiated undergraduate social work education. The purpose was to increase professional opportunities for deaf students and to provide deaf people with the social services they do not ordinarily receive. The needs of both student and client groups are discussed, with emphasis on teaching techniques and skills required to serve the deaf population. Hearing students can acquire the necessary skills with provision made for adequate communication, and with the introduction of courses on deafness in social work programs.     

The Schoolkid Self

The article considers the critical nature of elementary school experiences for children's emotional development. To do this, aspects of two theories are compared. One of the theories is from a recent doctoral dissertation on the subjective experiences of childhood. The other is developmental theory inherent in self psychology. There are concepts in both theories related to children's experiences in elementary school and implications for ways elementary schools can provide empathic environments supportive of healthy emotional development. The concepts are illustrated with children's narratives related to their school experiences, narratives which were part of the research data.     

Re-defining 'norms': D/deaf young people's transitions to independence

Traditionally, young people's transitions from a state of dependent childhood to an independent adult identity have been measured in terms of a developmental stage model. However, it is increasingly being recognised that young people are not a universal category and that their transitions need to be understood within the diverse context of peers, family, and communities. This paper draws on a rich body of work from the interdisciplinary field of Deaf studies and original research with D/deaf young people – a group generally overlooked by sociological research – to challenge and to advance conventional interdisciplinary debates about youth transitions in two ways. In the first half of the paper we examine D/deaf young people's conventional school‐to‐work, housing and domestic transitions and in doing so reflect upon the ways that their experiences shed a new light on understandings of these traditional markers of independent adulthood. In the second half of the paper we challenge conventional definitions of what marks an important transition by focusing on the transition that many D/deaf young people themselves define as the most significant in their lives, learning BSL and the transition to an independent D/deaf identity that this enables them to make. In doing so the paper mainstreams within sociology an important body of research about D/deaf people's experiences from Deaf studies.     

Deaf Children and Young People’s Experiences of Using Specialist Mental Health Services

Deaf children have an increased prevalence of mental health problems compared with hearing children. Generic Child And Adolescent Mental Health Services do not have the skills or expertise to meet the mental health needs of this group of children. Three teams in England provide specialist mental health services for deaf children. This research explored children’s experiences of using these services. Twenty‐four deaf children participated in the study. Overall children valued and benefited from the service. The expertise of the staff and the presence of deaf clinicians were key to these positive experiences.     

Research With Deaf Children and Not on Them: A Study of Method and Process

This study addresses the design requirements and innovative data collection methods for a study that aimed to be deaf‐centred and child‐friendly. The approach was created for a 6‐year longitudinal study of Sign Bilingual education from the perspective of eight deaf children who were educated using that approach from 9/10 to 15/16 years old. The research question was: ‘From the deaf child's perspective, what are the experiences, advantages and disadvantages of Sign Bilingual education?' This study will discuss the methods developed for the first element of the study when the children were 9/10 years old, using six interactive weekly workshops. These included video diaries, photography, peer interviewing, drawing, poster making and group discussion. The appropriateness for and adaptations made with respect to signing deaf children are discussed as well as the wider significance of this approach for children's research in general.     

Development of a framework for classifying threat and neglect in childhood: A qualitative study

Quantification of childhood adversity has typically involved a cumulative risk approach in which total number of discrete adversities serves as an index of overall risk. However, this approach fails to account for the growing evidence of differential outcomes following exposure to childhood adversities. An alternative approach adopts a dimensional perspective, with growing evidence for distinct developmental impacts associated with exposure to threat (violence/abuse) and deprivation (neglect). This study developed a framework for the classification of these dimensions through a thematic analysis of health practitioners' views and accounts of different forms of childhood adversity. Ten health practitioners experienced in working with children with challenging behaviours and neurodevelopmental disorders participated in semi-structured interviews regarding definitions and examples of six categories of adversity: physical/emotional/sexual abuse, physical/emotional neglect, and domestic and family violence. The qualitative analysis identified 23 themes across the six categories of adversity, along with two overarching themes regarding ambiguity of classifying exposures and non-specific outcomes of exposures. Themes were integrated to provide a framework and checklist for classifying indicators of exposure to threat and deprivation. The findings offer a framework and checklist for the assessment of threat and deprivation that will allow for further testing of the dimensional risk model.     

Anticipatory Guidance: A Hospital-Based Intervention for Adolescents with Perinatal Loss

There are well documented complexities and challenges of pregnancy in the adolescent years. Social workers are usually the front line workers with the adolescent population and are often called to provide bereavement services in a hospital setting. This article describes a pathway for short term intervention in working with adolescents experiencing a perinatal loss and focuses on brief intense anticipatory guidance as the optimal way to provide care under these circumstances. This described approach includes: the developmental level of the adolescent, the receptive posture of the social worker, the adolescent’s stage of acceptance of the pregnancy; the meaning of the loss; her emotional strengths; environmental resources and risk factors.     

Exploring in Silence: Hearing and Deaf Infants Explore Objects Differently Before Cochlear Implantation

Infant development has rarely been informed by the behavior of infants with sensory differences despite increasing recognition that infant behavior itself creates sensory learning opportunities. The purpose of this study of object exploration was to compare the behavior of hearing and deaf infants, with and without cochlear implants, in order to identify the effects of profound sensorineural hearing loss on infant exploration before cochlear implantation, the behavioral effects of access to auditory feedback after cochlear implantation, and the sensory motivation for exploration behaviors performed by hearing infants as well. The results showed that 9‐month‐old deaf infants explored objects as often as hearing infants but they used systematically different approaches and less variation before compared to after cochlear implantation. Potential associations between these early experiences and later learning are discussed in the context of embodied developmental theory, comparative studies, and research with adults. The data call for increased recognition of the active sensorimotor nature of infant learning and future research that investigates differences in sensorimotor experience as potential mechanisms in later learning and sequential memory development.     

Travel Broadens the Mind

The onset of locomotion heralds one of the major life transitions in early development and involves a pervasive set of changes in perception, spatial cognition, and social and emotional development. Through a synthesis of published and hitherto unpublished findings, gathered from a number of converging research designs and methods, this article provides a comprehensive review and reanalysis of the consequences of self‐produced locomotor experience. Specifically, we focus on the role of locomotor experience in changes in social and emotional development, referential gestural communication, wariness of heights, the perception of self‐motion, distance perception, spatial search, and spatial coding strategies. Our analysis reveals new insights into the specific processes by which locomotor experience brings about psychological changes. We elaborate these processes and provide new predictions about previously unsuspected links between locomotor experience and psychological function. The research we describe is relevant to our broad understanding of the developmental process, particularly as it pertains to developmental transitions. Although acknowledging the role of genetically mediated developmental changes, our viewpoint is a transactional one in which a single acquisition, in this case the onset of locomotion, sets in motion a family of experiences and processes that in turn mobilize both broad‐based and context‐specific psychological reorganizations. We conclude that, in infancy, the onset of locomotor experience brings about widespread consequences, and after infancy, can be responsible for an enduring role in development by maintaining and updating existing skills.     

Post-Institutionalization: The Effects of Early Deprivation on Development of Romanian Adoptees

Accounts of childhood adversity and extreme deprivation are not new to psychological literature. Intensive case studies of children raised in isolation or extreme deprivation have provided developmental psychologists a better understanding of the effects of early environment on later development (see Curtiss, 1977, for a detailed account of the developmental sequelae of Genie, a girl rescued from 13 years of restraint and isolation). The influx of children adopted from impoverished institutional care has provided a more recent opportunity to investigate the long-term adjustment and outcome of children who endured a circumscribed period of deprivation (Gunnar, Bruce, &; Grotevant, 2000). The following paper will review the research concerning the physical, cognitive, and emotional development of children adopted from Romanian institutions within the last 15 years. Understanding this population is not only important for helping these children and their families, but also to delineate the effects of early deprivation and elucidate potential outcomes for other populations that experience early adverse life events.     

Deaf Families’ Unique Experiences and Obstacles

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on deaf children of deaf parents who grew up using American Sign Language (ASL) in deaf culture. Deaf children of deaf parents described their unique experiences of struggling with obstacles, including quality of education, low expectations from professionals, unwanted sympathy, mental health therapists’ lack of cultural competency, and not being asked for valuable perspectives or advice. The advice from deaf children of deaf parents is included in the article. By bringing greater attention to this population, mental health, school, and other professionals can increase their awareness of deaf families’ unique needs in their work environment.     

The Cultural Politics of Integrating Deaf Students in Regular Schools in Zimbabwe

The integration of deaf students into regular schools in Zimbabwe is fraught with cultural and political problems. Traditional beliefs that are negative toward disability are still prevalent among many people. The adult deaf community views integration negatively and with disrespect mainly because integration programmes in Zimbabwe do not promote deaf culture. The influences of foreign individuals and organisations of the deaf are at times, in directions that are not compatible with an agenda that aims to meet the educational needs of all deaf students. These factors are problematic and mitigate against the integration of deaf students in regular schools. This paper examines the cultural politics involved in the integration of deaf students in regular schools in Zimbabwe. It suggests ways to alleviate this dilemma for parents to make correct school choices for their deaf children.     

Research with Deaf People: Issues and Conflicts

The field of sign language research is fraught with problems-prejudice, mistrust, misunderstanding, unmet expectations, identity crises and pervasive mythologies, to name but a few. Some of these problems arise from cultural differences between the (usually hearing) researchers and the people they study. Others stem from a lack of appropriate training and sensitivity on the part of the researcher. Those who investigate aspects of deafness itself (medical, educational or psychological) also face these problems since they, too, need to be in contact with members of the deaf community. Researchers in fields other than deafness may find that they share many of the same problems. As a result of extended study of sign language and the deaf community and the experience of working with deaf associates for 15-20 years, both in the United Kingdom and in the USA, we have begun to understand the tensions felt by both deaf and hearing people when they come together in the research enterprise. This paper is an attempt to open a debate on the issues which have been ignored in the search for results and publications. Failure to deal with these points will undermine the validity of supposedly objective results. The issues concern the power relations between the communities and the roles of the research staff in relation to each other and to their respective communities.     

Differentiation of Self and the Process of Forgiveness: A Clinical Perspective for Couple and Family Therapy

In this article we explore the role of differentiation of self in facilitating forgiveness in the context of couple and family relationships. Differentiation is defined from the Bowen perspective as the ability to connect with others without being excessively emotionally reactive to the ebb and flow inherent in all significant relationships (being able to connect to others yet also being able to self‐regulate). Forgiveness is described as the releasing of an emotional injury via a complex psychological and relational process that is less an act of will than a discovery or possibility through understanding and empathy. Differentiation of self is related to emotional intelligence and empathy. The developmental and relational benefits of such are illustrated and discussed. A rationale for viewing differentiation and forgiveness in a contextual, historical, and relational attachment paradigm is suggested. Relevant clinical cases illustrate the dynamics of differentiation and forgiveness as discovery in the context of an understanding and empathic relational environment.     

Self-Care Practices and the Professional Self

ABSTRACT

Consistently and actively engaging in self-care has been shown to improve the performance of mental health practitioners by reducing burnout, vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, and other stress-related psychological problems. Not only is this important to the individual practitioner’s well-being, but ethical standards also mandate the recognition and remediation of any physical, mental, or emotional self-impairment to maintain high standards of care for clients. Professionals in small communities, like the Deaf community, however, confront unique challenges in attending to their self-care. This article investigates these challenges—as well as the rewards—experienced by Deaf and hearing counselors working in mental health care with deaf clients.     

Adoption of children with developmental disabilities.

United Methodist Family Services of Virginia placed 41 developmentally disabled children in adoptive homes between August 1985 and June 1988, representing a range of chronic emotional, intellectual, and physical disabilities. This article describes the need for specialized adoption programs for children with developmental disabilities and the methods used in placing these children. The obstacles to adoption of children with developmental disabilities are also discussed.