Assessing resilience in students who are deaf or blind: Supplementing standardized achievement testing

ABSTRACT

Although testing accommodations for standardized assessments are available for students with disabilities, interpretation remains challenging. The authors explored resilience to see if it could contribute to the interpretation of academic success for students who are deaf or hard of hearing or blind or have low vision. High school students (30 deaf, 11 blind) responded to the Resiliency Scales and a school-specific resilience survey. Student ratings were within 1 SD of those who were not deaf or blind; resilience was positively correlated with academic success (grade point average). Resilience information may contribute to the interpretation of academic success in students who are deaf or blind and may provide insight into potential interventions. This is the first time students who are deaf or blind have been assessed on a published measure of resilience. Results defy stereotypes and affirm that individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing or blind or have low vision have more in common with the hearing and seeing world than is often recognized.

KEYWORDS:

• Blindness
• deafness
• disabilities
• resilience, stereotypes

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Superintendent Carol Hilty, Aaron Rosenthal, Kathy Emter, Ellen Trapp, and the team at the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind for their commitment to this project. Casey Schindling and Katherine Dials were undergraduates at the same the research was completed. They have since graduated.

Additional information

Funding

National Institutes of Health