Parental involvement in the care and intervention of children with hearing loss

Abstract

Objective: The present study aimed to explore the nature of parental involvement in the intervention of children with hearing loss, as experienced by parents. Design: A qualitative descriptive methodology was adopted to conduct semi-structured in-depth interviews with a purposive sample of parents who have a child with hearing loss. Study sample: Seventeen parents of 11 children aged 6–9 years participated in this study. Results: The overarching theme of parents taking the central role was identified using thematic analysis. This overarching theme connected five themes which described the nature of parental involvement: (1) parents work behind the scenes; (2) parents act as ‘case managers’; (3) parents always have their child’s language development in mind; (4) parents’ role extends to advocacy for all children with hearing loss; and (5) parents serve a number of roles, but at the end of the day, they are parents. Conclusions: The results indicate that parental involvement in the intervention of children with hearing loss is multifaceted in nature and incorporates a broad range of behaviours and practices. These findings have important implications for the provision of family-centred practices.

Key Words:

• Children
• hearing loss
• parental involvement
• intervention
• family-centred practice

Acknowledgements

Findings of this study were presented at the 22^nd International Congress on the Education of the Deaf on 8 July 2015 in Athens, Greece. The authors gratefully acknowledge the parents who participated in this study as well as the LOCHI research team for their support, especially Laura Button and Louise Martin for helping to recruit participants.

Declaration of interest: This research was supported by the Commonwealth of Australia through the HEARing Cooperative Research Centre, established and operated under the AusIndustry Business CRC Program. Part of the work included in this study was supported by funding from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (R01DC008080) awarded to Dr Ching.