Developing Deaf Child: Self Esteem Is a Complex Construct - Essay Example

?Developing Deaf Child: Self esteem is a complex construct Introduction Deafness is explained as an experience that puts a limit on the level of interaction and the “linguistic feedback from the social environment” (Crowe, 2). The negative self perception of the deaf individual largely comes from the negative parental reactions and the lack of understanding of the child. In the field of deaf education it has become highly significant to examine carefully the important guidelines of the empowerment and resource orientation. This has to be done for the improvement of the understanding quotient of both the deaf children and their parents. A study conducted has revealed that the socioemotional problems of the children are associated with high parental stress. This fact makes it significant to utilize the Resource Oriented Support Consulting and Support strategy in educating the deaf students and their parents. It has been seen over the time that resource oriented support concept has helped in the development of the child (Hintermair). The Commission on Education of the Deaf reveals that the most difficult challenge while dealing with deaf children and youths is to accelerate language developments among them. It has been identified that there are certain negative factors that affect the self esteem of the deaf individuals. These include the poor parental communication skills with the deaf children, inadequacy in the maternal bonding and there is always a feeling of mistrust among the deaf people and children due to the sense of inequality. This is all the more aggravated by the negative attitudes that the deaf individual faces from people and social isolation. Apart from this there is a lack of cultural identity among the deaf people. Sometimes it has been also noticed that the deaf and short of hearing individual faces rejection from the members of the family and the society as well. A meta- analysis study about self esteem of the deaf individual has found that the deaf children who have deaf parents have higher self esteem than the deaf children with hearing parents. It has also been found that the deaf people who use sign languages have higher self esteem. The more strongly one identifies with the Deaf Community the more he scores in the self esteem. It has been also found that an individual who is deaf identify himself with the deaf community if he has been brought up among other deaf individuals. But interestingly it has been also found out that though group identification is associated with higher self esteem, group membership associates itself with lower self esteem. (Bat-Chava, 221) From the perspective of communication, deafness is also a reason that the individuals isolate themselves from the general society. This isolation develops cognitive and interpersonal deprivation among the individual who are deaf and hard of hearing. There have been several instances when deaf people have developed distorted self concepts among them as they identify themselves in a situation where they are not capable enough to build in a relation with the hearing people around them. Hence the school settings for the deaf children have to be developed in such a way that it can be used to overcome the problems faced by them. (Crowe, 2; Bowe, 1; Hintermair) Family Influence It has been observed that the self image of an individual and the identity of that person along with the cultural values and norms to a greater extent depend on the individual’s experience with the family. The issues like communication affect the entire family which involves the hearing and the non hearing member of the family as well. It has been found out that even though the hearing members of the family learn the sign languages but in most of the cases they fail to attain the high levels of fluency. This results in the exclusion of the deaf member of the family from the incidental and informal conversation that takes place among the hearing members of the family. It has been observed that the deaf individuals prefer interacting with their deaf peers than with the family members who are not comfortable with the sign languages. On a contrary to this a deaf child born to the parents who are deaf learns the language in their home itself through modeling. The deaf identity that is being shared by both the parent and the children are a source of building and organizing the child’s self image. Besides this a deaf environment helps in fostering a healthy self concept among the deaf child along with common values. It has been observed that a group of deaf and signing peers (that is who uses sign languages while interacting) potentially help in filling in the gaps that is created while social interaction. This gap is natural in a hearing community where sign language is not used. Therefore it can be seen that a deaf environment helps in developing a subculture with the help of which the interpretation of larger societal values is possible. (Crowe, 2) The situation gets aggravated all the more as the mother and the child bonding does not develop much. As the mother is not that well equipped with the sign language it does not enable her to interact with her deaf child. This makes the child isolated from his mother as well as from the other family members. This lowers the self esteem of the child as he cannot identify himself with the rest of the family members. (Hintermair) From the past few years science has experienced a significant change in dealing with illness and disability. The changes in the perspective have also brought about changes in dealing with deaf and hard of hearing children. There have been two concept oriented changes in the perception, the first being the concept of empowerment and the second approach is that of resource orientation. The concept of empowerment exemplifies and expresses an attitude of need and necessity towards people. This approach is based on self responsibility, participation and codetermination. The resource oriented approach states the way to transform the empowerment oriented approach into psychological and educational practice. Empowerment inculcates the seeds of strength, power, energy and imagination in one’s mind. This helps in bringing back the self determination and the self esteem in the deaf children. Having the required confidence, determination and strength of will is a necessary condition for achieving success. Hence if these three things can be inculcated in the deaf children properly by the schools then there would be no stopping them from achieving academic success. The empowerment concept encourages the power of self activity and self creation among the deaf children which encourages them to take their own affairs and thereby encourages them to rediscover their own power and capabilities. Once any human being comes to know about his capability he becomes more confident while doing anything. Jankowski opines that a victory for the deaf individual will mean the creation of new image. Hence it is advisable that the empowerment starts at the earlier ages. Empowerment of the family where the deaf child is born is needed as a team work which is necessary to quickly fix up things and to take premature actions. The family members are needed to participate in the empowerment approach as any human being gets his value and distinctive quality from the situation he has been exposed to at the initial phase of his life. The person who addresses the deaf individual the most in his home is the person who influences him the most. An empowerment approach lays down the need of the recognition for the deaf individuals. Recognition is the catalyst which sets the mood for the development in a person. Thus it encourages the person to develop own self by making an effort to achieve success in the field of education. It will also motivate the person to acquire skills to make an identity for themselves. Hence the schools have to make an effort to see that the empowerment approach is properly delivered to the deaf child and to parents as well to enhance the academic success among them. Resource directed approach has been observed as the method that would help developing ways to enable development among the deaf children. This has to be taken up by the family member of the deaf individuals. The strengthening of the character of an individual is something that has to be done from the home at the initial level and then it gets enhanced at the primary school level. For this the schools should facilitates the parents of the deaf children with classes which will help them in guiding their wards in the right way. (Hintermair, 493-495) Education A survey conducted by the Center for Assessment and Demographic Studies at Gallaudet revealed that the deaf student undergoes a level of depression and frustration. It has been seen that the deaf students struggle quiet a lot in the sphere of education. The pattern has been observed from quite a time. It has been observed that the students who are deaf or short of hearing become successful in reaching the third or fourth standard only when they are 13 or 14. On the contrary the general hearing students achieve that standard at the age of 8 or 9 years. It has also been observed that at the high school level the students who are deaf tend to remain at those standards rather than advancing furthers. (Bowe, 5) From the findings it has become clear that children who are deaf or short of hearing show a slow development in acquiring skills in the sphere of education. The constant low rank of mastery of English among the deaf individual makes it hard for them to acquire jobs and employment. As it is evident to all that the present situation is synonymous to the information age and the mastery of the English language becomes essential to acquire jobs. It has also been mentioned that if the individual who are hard of hearing gets acquainted with competencies of the information age they would be able to utilize it for accessing unlimited academic and vocational information which would help them in acquiring successes. As most of the works are performed through emails and through other technical equipments like fax it would not be a problem for the deaf person to handle it as these all are 100 percent (or nearly so) visual communications medium. This all works involve the usage of written word hence one is needed to be acquainted with the language. In order to utilize the technical medium one needs to be fully adept with reading and writing skills. The priority has to be given to the fact that the learning process of the deaf children must be stressed on the acquiring the language. The Commission on Education of the Deaf (COED) has recommended that the priority of the research and practice must be to help the children who are deaf to acquire the language skills. There have been several approaches to teach the deaf children the language some of which are providing with a type of symbols which they were asked produce analyze and correct. But it has to be kept it in mind that no approach has been empirically proven to be the most successful and hence new innovations in the method of teaching the deaf children is a welcome. Bowe is of the opinion that television captioning can also be used as a medium for teaching the deaf children the language. This is a resource which has to be utilized properly in making the deaf children learn the language. As children are addicted to television more the captioning will help them learn the language. It has been also mentioned by Bowe that the Telecommunication Act of 1996 should mandate the captioning of all the video programs that are being aired on the Television. But that again makes it important for the schools to teach the children the language English. It has to be noted assessment of the student should include the application of the student rather than just reporting the information. The curricula has to be developed in school in such a way that the American Sign Language (ASL) accelerates the competency if the English language. (Bowe, 73-76) Cultural influences Culture has an important role to play in establishing an identity among the individuals. It is present both inside which is known as subjective culture and outside which is known as objective culture in an individual. Subjective culture is present through the internalized beliefs and values and interaction pattern. When one considers objective culture the religious political and educational institutions are included in it. Hence when one considers the behavior of any individual one always does that in the context of culture. When the deaf people are being observed and examined the results showed that they are caught in the “cultural dissonance”. (Crowe, 3) Cultural dissonance occurs when the person is caught between his own identity and his culture. For a deaf individual or a person who is hard of hearing might find himself caught between the hearing culture and a deaf culture. Eventually this may happen that he does not find himself fitting in any of the particular culture thus resulting in a creation of internalized tension and anxiety in him. (Crowe, 3) Cultural dissonance is something that lowers the self esteem among the individual, hence the school has to see that the deaf children does not undergo cultural dissonance. The approach of resource orientation and empowerment orientation has to be used by the schools in a proper way so that it empowers the deaf student in such a way that they do not get affected by the identity crisis. The school has to inculcate the fact that identity is made by his own ability and not by identifying or associating himself with the other elements of the society. Social influences The conflict between the norms of the dominant group and the minority group establishes a feeling of cultural dissonance. In this context the dominant groups includes the hearing people and the minority group includes the deaf individuals. It has been observed that the minority groups are treated with disdain which gives rise to the feeling of low self esteem among the deaf individuals. (Crowe, 3) “Survival of the fittest” the phrase seems to be still prevalent in the society. It has been observed that the individuals who are fit disregard the interests of the minority of the section. In this case the only solution of the situation is to generate awareness among the people of the society. That can be done by the school by organizing workshops to make others aware of the situation of the deaf individuals. The workshops can be made all the more interesting and successful by inviting any successful hearing disabled individual in the event. This in one way can erase out the feeling of disdain from the hearing people of the society about their non hearing peers and at the same time can invoke a feeling of self respect and esteem among the deaf individuals. (Crowe, 3) Conclusion The utmost need of the hour is to develop more research works to bring in new innovation in the teaching the deaf individual. The process of teaching has to be essentially included in the process of learning among the children who are hard of hearing. The parents and the deaf children both have to be educated and an early intervention is needed in the learning process of the children. The young deaf children have to be given a dynamic learning opportunity. The curriculum of the school must be designed in a way which would enable the deaf children acquire mastery of the language. The children have to be exposed in all the methods of learning which would involve a rigorous yet enjoyable session of reading books and reading the caption of the video programs. Both the family and the educational institutes have to focus on the fact that the children who are hard of hearing or who are deaf recognize their self capability. The recognition of the self capability is the most important thing that would help the child or any individual to cater to his needs. Thus there is a need of strengthening the capability among the children from the primary level only. This calls for the intervention of the school. Schools have to make an effort to encourage the empowerment of the students. Family influence on the self esteem of the children is a very important aspect and specially the mother child bonding. The primary teacher of every individual is his mother and hence whatever he learns at the initial stages of his life that is largely being influenced by the values and principle of his mother. Thus mother needs to take an extra step to make them fluent in the sign language so that the bond between them and the children is strengthened. But the important responsibility lies on the shoulder of the primary schools that will have to act more efficiently, as the initial stages of every human being is the building block of his life. Education has to be pertained in a way that makes the child more affluent with the language. As already discussed above that mastery of the language can only help the deaf individual acquire a job in the present information age. Acquiring a job is directly related to boosting of the self esteem as that provides an individual with an identity thus shielding him from the phenomenon of cultural dissonance. It has to be also ensured that the child is not adversely affected by the negative attitude of the society. The school should take an initiative to build the sense of bonding among the deaf individual with the society so that they do not get isolated from it. There have been instances when the dominant group of the society has behaved in disdain with the minority group. But the schools have to inculcate the confidence and the feeling of capability in such a way so that the negative behavior of the society can never influence the deaf individuals. References: 1. Crowe, Teresa V. “Self Esteem Scores among deaf college students: An Examination of Gender and Parents’ hearing Status and Signing ability”, Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf education 8.2 2003: 199-206 2. Bowe, Frank, “Language Development in deaf children”, Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf education 3.1 1998: 73-77. 3. Bat-Chava, Yael, “Antecedents of Self esteem in deaf people: A meta analytic review”, Rehabilitation Psychology, 38.4, 1993: 221-234 4. Hintermair, Menfred, “Parental Resources, parental stress, and Socio-emotional development of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children”, Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 11.4 2006: 493-510, June 24, 2011, from: http://jdsde.oxfordjournals.org/content/11/4/493.full.pdf Read More