Comparing parent and teacher ratings of emotional and behavioural difficulties in 5-year old children who are deaf or hard-of-hearing

ABSTRACT

Children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) are at higher risk of developing mental health problems. This study reports on the parent and teacher ratings of emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD) in 5-year old DHH children. It explores the similarities and differences between informants, and the risk and protective factors associated with parent and teacher-ratings of EBD. Parents and teachers of 224 DHH children completed questionnaires on children's EBD and functional auditory behaviour. Children completed standardized assessments of non-verbal cognitive and language abilities. On average, parent- and teacher-rated EBD were 0.42 and 0.20 standard deviations higher than typically developing children. Parents reported more behavioural problems (hyperactivity and conduct), whereas teachers reported poorer prosocial behaviour. Inter-rater correlations were generally low to moderate (0.29 to 0.50). Overall, children with additional disabilities, lower non-verbal cognitive ability, and poor functional auditory behaviour were at higher risk of EBD. Language ability was only a significant predictor of teacher-rated EBD for children with hearing aids but not cochlear implants. Differences in informant-ratings emphasize the need for a multi-informant approach to get a global perspective on the psychopathology of DHH children. The findings indicate that parents may need assistance with managing behavioural problems at home, and teachers should facilitate more opportunities to practice prosocial behaviour at school. Intervention efforts should focus on facilitating good functional listening skills, as this may in turn, improve the mental health of young DHH children.

KEYWORDS:

• Hearing loss
• children
• mental health
• language
• emotional behavioural problems
• peer relationships

Acknowledgements

We gratefully thank all the children, families and their teachers for participation in this study. We are also indebted to the many persons who served as clinicians for the study participants or assisted in other clinical or administrative capacities at Australian Hearing, Catherine Sullivan Centre, Hear and Say Centre, National Acoustic Laboratories, Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children, Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital Cochlear Implant Centre, the Shepherd Centre, and the Sydney Cochlear Implant Centre.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr Cara Wong is a research psychologist/postdoctoral research associate at the National Acoustics Laboratories (NAL) and Hearing CRC, and an honorary associate with the Department of Psychology, Macquarie University.

Dr Teresa Ching is a senior research scientist and leader of the Longitudinal Outcomes of Children with Hearing Loss (LOCHI) study at NAL and Hearing CRC.

Prof Linda Cupples is a professor in the Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University.

Prof Greg Leigh is the director of the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children (RIDBC) Renwick Centre and conjoint professor of special education, University of Newcastle.

Ms Vivienne Marnane, Laura Button, Louise Martin, Jessica Whitfield and Miriam Gunnourie are research speech pathologists at NAL and the Hearing CRC.

ORCID

Linda Cupples http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3659-1642

Greg Leigh http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7564-7317

Additional information

Funding

This work was partly supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders [grant number R01DC008080]; and the Commonwealth of Australia through the Office of Hearing Services. We also acknowledge the financial support of the HEARing CRC, established and supported under the Cooperative Research Centres Program – an initiative of the Australian Government; Phonak Ltd.; and the Oticon Foundation.