First Irish study on deaf and hard of hearing children’s social and emotional development

A research team led by Dr. Elizabeth Mathews in the School of Inclusive and Special Education is embarking on an important national study examining the social and emotional development of deaf and hard of hearing children in the Republic of Ireland.  This study is being part-funded by Chime: the National Charity for Deafness and Hearing Loss.  The study will be the first large scale examination of this topic in Ireland.  Much of the international evidence shows that deaf and hard of hearing children can experience more social and emotional difficulties compared with their hearing peers, but we do not know if this is the case in Ireland or not.  The study team will examine this by asking parents to complete a questionnaire that includes a number of scales examining their child’s strengths and difficulties.  These scales are widely used in research so the results of the Irish study can be compared with other studies carried out with hearing children in Ireland and other studies carried out with deaf and hard of hearing children internationally.  Parents also have the option to say they agree to have their child’s teacher fill out a similar questionnaire.

The team is now recruiting parents to take part in this study.  Parents of all deaf and hard of hearing children aged between 4 and 17 are invited to fill in the study questionnaire.  We would like parents of children from both primary and secondary school, mainstream and deaf school to take part.  We also want to include children who have needs other than deafness.  Full information about the study is provided in the introductory page to the questionnaire.

If you have questions about the study, you can contact Elizabeth at Elizabeth.mathews@dcu.ie.

The link to the study questionnaire is here: Psychosocial Development of Deaf Children in Ireland - Parent Survey