School-aged hearing children's perceptions of family life in deaf-parented families

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to describe school-aged hearing children's perceptions of family life in Deaf-parented families. A secondary analysis was conducted on a subset of data from a study titled "Family Functioning: Deaf Parents with Nondeaf Children" (Jones, 1990) . The conceptual framework for this study was based on Roy's Adaptation Model (1984) . Data consisted of semi-structured interviews conducted with nine children who were the eldest in Deaf-parented families. The children were between the ages of seven and eleven years, with a mean age of 8.6 years. The interviews were designed to parallel topics addressed in the Feetham Family Functioning Survey (Roberts & Feetham, 1982), which was administered to the children's parents. Data analysis was performed utilizing content analysis methods to generate themes (Polit & Hungler, 1987) . Themes were then categorized utilizing modes of adaptation as described by Roy (1984). Children's perceptions of their family life were characterized by the overall theme, "We're the same as a hearing-parented family, and we're different." Children's responses indicated that differences in language and communication were an accepted aspect of their lives, and being bicultural was a positive outcome of growing up in a Deaf-parented family.