Communication between Hearing Parents and Their Deaf Children in Saudi Arabia - Research Proposal Example

March 18, Communication between Hearing Parents and Their Deaf Children in Saudi Arabia Healthy language development in children is facilitated through active conversations between adults and children, particularly before age 3 (Lederberg & Everhart, 1998, p. 896 #64). Pediatricians and other medical practitioners advise parents to deliver as much language to their children as possible in order to allow them to hear it and potentially to understand it. Suitable examples of providing language to children is through storytelling, reading, and simply talking about what happened during the day. However, it is important to recognize the importance of encouraging children to participate in language exchanges with parents – since communication and language acquisition skills are not limited just to hearing but to speaking as well (Zimmerman, et al., 2009, p. 343 #11). Having a deaf child in a hearing household adds a level of difficulty to such interactions because it raises the question of how deaf children can be expected to develop language abilities without a means of communicating with their hearing parents (Lederberg & Everhart, 1998, p. 896 #62). The scale of this issue is large, considering that more than 90 percent of newborns in any given population with some form of hearing loss are born to families where one or both parents are hearing and have no reason to suspect the child has any hearing loss (Schein and Delk as cited in Kurtzer-White & Luterman, 2003). Communication between hearing parents and their deaf children not only through language but also gesture and vocalizations is vital to the extent that they provide a way for deaf children to develop nonlinguistic meanings to represent information not immediately evident in their perceptual field. Accordingly, these elaborated meanings motivate young children to increase their usage of language and to develop the motivation for an increase of the utilization of gestures who cannot otherwise express themselves linguistically (Bloom as cited in Lederberg & Everhart, 1998). Hearing adults interacting with deaf children must also be able to recognize the different, pragmatic channels of communication that children use through gesture and vocalization, such as a tendency to direct mothers with pointing or using single words or sounds to question (Lederberg & Everhart, 2000, p. 318 #6). Background According to Mbaluka, Kurebwa and Wadesango (2013), the majority of hearing parents in Gweru Urban use the total communication method as their mode of communication with their deaf children (p. 6 #10). The method prescribes aspects of listening, speech reading, signing, and finger spelling when interacting with children. None of the parents from the sample used manualism, which is a communication method emphasizing hands, facial expressions, and body language. As a result, Mbaluka et al. (2013) note, many parents fail to communicate effectively with hearing children as a result of the lack of a shared linguistic system, which can cause frustration and depression for parents and stunted development for children (p. 6 #37). Hearing parents’ decisions about how to communicate with deaf children is influenced by counseling and support services, the attitudes and policies of the professionals they consult with, and the educational authorities in their community (Eleweke & Rodda, 2000, p. 380 #127), which is an avenue for driving changes – if changes are necessary – to how medical practitioners advise hearing parents on the issue. In addition, the degree to which one or both parents are deaf or hard of hearing will affect their preferences on communication modality (Mitchell & Karchmer, 2005, p. 242 #15). One must also realize that communication modality preferences are not entirely homogenous throughout society, as different subcultures within society will play a role. As an example, while European Americans rely on the written word as constitutive of American culture, African-Americans rely much more on the spoken word and the oral tradition they come from and its impact on the relationships between hearing parents and deaf children needs to be considered in that context (Butlter as cited in Borum, 2012). We see similar nuances as it relates to Hispanic mothers with deaf or hard of hearing children, where Hispanic culture in the United States already faces difficulty with regard to language issues in a broadly European American context (Alfano, 2007, p. 33 #21). A social problem arises when there is a misunderstanding of deafness within a culture, as children with disabilities are statistically more susceptible to abuse and neglect relative to children who do not have disabilities. As a result, it is essential that parents put biases or judgments aside, trust the advice of professions from whom they seek information, and make decisions to ensure that healthy communication patterns are created with a child (Decker, 2009, p. 173 #22). The background issues on hearing parents’ approach to communicating with their deaf child reflect the author’s experience as a teacher for deaf students for eleven years. During this time, the author taught students in an elementary school in Saudi Arabia, where most parents are not fluent in Arabic Sign Language (ArSL). While there are approximately 17 million deaf people in the Arab world and 88,000 deaf people in Saudi Arabia alone (Almasoud & Al-Khalifa, 2011, p. 1 #2), hearing parents represent a small proportion of the overall number of speakers of ArSL. When asked about how students communicated with their parents, some students would reply that their parents could not use ArSL – even at a very basic level – while some other students replied that their parents could use it at a very basic level but not at the level necessary for productive, daily communication. On the bottom of the spectrum, some students replied that their parents had prevented them from using ArSL at all and instead had encouraged or even forced them to use an oral method to communicate, which is problematic from the perspective that it removes paths for children to communicate and is not as effective as a moral holistic approach like the total communication method. Accordingly, one can see that the root of many issues tied to hearing parents’ communication practices with their deaf children is tied to the relationship between those parents and specialist educators who can provide more sound advice on how to achieve effective childhood development. Calderon (2000) studied the effectiveness of a school-based program for children with hearing loss. The research concluded that parental involvement in school-based educational programs (showing hearing parents how to effectively communicate with deaf children) is a strong predictor of early reading skills. However, maternal skills (and maternal use of additional services) were a strong predictor of social-emotional adjustment of the child (Calderon, 2000, p. 151 #15), which supports the idea that success in preparing deaf children for further education begins very early on with the adaptation of hearing parents’ skills to the specific learning needs of deaf children. We also know from existing literature that the creation of an accessible and easy-to-use learning tool and improving existing sign language learning programs is a method for increasing hearing parents’ involvement in the education of deaf children (Weaver & Starner, 2011, p. 98 #48). Lastly, as children become more immersed in the deaf community, including its language and culture, one must understand that some potential conflicts may exist between hearing parents, who may not be able to participate in that language and culture without the prerequisite knowledge of ArSL or other nonverbal ways of communication. Singleton and Tittle (2000) describe how members of the deaf community continually find that they must interact with individuals who have no experience working with the deaf, which can often include hearing parents of deaf children who never adapted to a world where verbal communication with the child is not possible. For educators and pediatric medical practitioners, it is important to realize that hearing parents of deaf children are sensitive to their own identities as protectors and providers for their children in a social context (such as in an environment of people who are predominantly deaf) where they cannot participate, especially when there is inadequate or nonexistent interpreting services to help them; thus, hearing parents may need as much accommodation in an education setting as their deaf children do (Singleton & Tittle, 2000, p. 233 #5). Problem Statement Particularly in Saudi Arabia but also throughout the world, there is a lack of literature devoted to the topic of methods of communication that work best for hearing parents in interactions with their deaf children. Although the body of research on development in deaf children broadly and in other cultures is well-developed, there is an absence in the research agenda (and therefore the practical guidance to parents, educators, and authorities) on how to facilitate interactions between hearing parents and their deaf children. While ArSL is taught in schools to deaf children in Saudi Arabia, students generally lack opportunities to speak the language with their hearing parents, who may not make the effort or who may see ArSL as inadequate preparation for life as an adult. While making sign language more accessible to hearing parents and their deaf child is a recommendation made by educators, pediatricians, developmental psychologists, and linguists (Humphries, et al., 2014, p. 38 #14) – perhaps at the root of this issue is public views of ArSL and concepts of deafness generally. Accordingly, the overall net result is children lacking a communicative means with parents. Moreover, although there are some important factors that influence the choice of a communication method by hearing parents to communicate with their deaf child in general, there is a lack of such literature with regard specifically to Saudi Arabia. While the lack of qualified staff to run deaf and hard of hearing programs involving interpretation and assistive technology is apparent in other countries, such as the United States as reviewed by Brown-Levey (2004, p. 61 #13), the case of Saudi Arabia deserves specific attention given the documented lack of public support for deaf people within the country. According to the Arab Federation of Organizations Working with the Deaf (AFOWD), there are only eight accredited sign-language interpreters for Saudi Arabia’s 750,000 citizens (approximately 3 percent of the overall population) with hearing disabilities (Arab News, 2013). Given that there is such little public interpretative support, it comes as no surprise that parents are reluctant to adopt or to support the teaching and utilization of ArSL for their children. Aside from public awareness, it is important to understand what factors that are under the control of schools and other educational institutions that might motivate hearing parents to adopt a particular communication modality with their deaf child. Purpose Statement and Research Questions The overall purpose of the present study is to explore the communication modality used by hearing parents in their day-to-day interactions with their deaf child. That issue will set the research agenda for subsequent discussions because it defines the priority of modalities in terms of which methods hearing parents will tend to prefer without any intervention by counselors, educators, or pediatric medicine practitioners. In addition, finding modality preferences for parents will allow the body of literature on this topic in the Saudi context to draw comparisons and contrasts with the results of literature focusing predominantly on the United States and Europe where support from parents and institutions for deaf children is more comprehensive. The research will answer the following question: What is the communication method used by hearing parents to communicate with their deaf child in Saudi Arabia? In addition to discovering which communication modality is preferred by most parents in the Saudi context, by discovering the most prescient factors at play in influencing this choice (i.e. of either a single modality or multiple depending on the situation), the study will address the reasoning about which modality is overall preferred. Once there is a general understanding of why those modalities are preferred by most participants in the study, then one can begin to explore ways of improving the situation particularly within the Saudi Arabian context, much like how Eleweke and Rodda (2000) describe the factors influencing parents’ selection of a communication mode and how Lederberg and Everhart (1998) describe how to made that communication mode more effective for hearing mothers. Although generalizable results are available from research taken from other cultures and national contexts, conducting a study of Saudi parents and children will provide points of convergence or divergence. This section of the research will answer the following question: What are the factors that contribute to the hearing parents’ decision of choosing their methods of communication with their deaf children in Saudi Arabia? Research Methods Design Having conducted a review of the existing literature and settled on a research question, the next step in the research process is to collect quantitative data to be used to draw conclusions (Cresswell, 2012, p. 140 #1). The research design utilized to draw conclusions on this issue of communication modalities will be aimed at collecting quantitative data about parents’ attitudes, beliefs, values, and aspirations during the decision process about which communication modality best fits their relationship with the deaf child. The most effective approach for collecting this data will be through the use of a written survey, which enables the fastest coding and analysis of information pertinent to the research question. Participants After deciding to collect quantitative data, the next question in the research and data gathering process is to decide which participants will be studied. The population being studied in this scenario is the entire group of hearing parents of deaf children in Saudi Arabia and since all members of the population can be surveyed, this study will collect a sample of 100 hearing parents of one or more deaf children who attend elementary schools for the deaf in Saudi Arabia. The sample will be representative of the population in the sense that it will represent the typical attitudes, beliefs, values, and aspirations of Saudi hearing parents of deaf children broadly. Simple random sampling will be utilized as a way of achieving representativeness by seeking participants with equal probability from lists of parents whose children attend schools for the deaf in the local area. Because information about children is sensitive, it is important that permission for the study is obtained from each and every parent who volunteers information in a survey – in addition to the school for offering their information in the creation of a sample. Permission is a necessary step insofar as it allows them to acknowledge the use of their information and their understanding of what it will be used for. Formal permission will be sought through the use of a letter that describes the purpose of the study, what is required of the parent in terms of time and effort, and how the data will be used to improve educational outcomes for deaf children of hearing parents. Because parents who give formal permission and participate in the survey come from a number of backgrounds and diverse perspectives, it will be important to ensure each understand thoroughly the permission they are granting by volunteering their information for the survey. Instrument As mentioned previously, the desired data collection method for this study will be a written survey. The survey itself will consist of three sections. The first of the three sections will contain items relevant to the respondent and the child’s characteristics, such as number of children in the immediate family, age, the training related to communication the child has received, preferences about schools, medical interventions (such as surgeries) or the use of hearing aid devices, age at which the hearing loss was discovered, degree of hearing loss, and other factors that might be important for understanding the quantitative data received during the administration of the survey in its other sections. The second section will query respondents on which factors (or people) shaped their decisions regarding their deaf child by rating the importance of those factors on a 4-point scale from “very unimportant” to “very important”, which reflects the approach taken by Li, Bain, and Steinberg (2003) toward measuring the same attitudes and decision factors for hearing parents of deaf children in the United States. Because the instrument itself and items included in it were validated as part of an earlier study, there is no need to re-establish its validity in this case. In addition, the different factors that are known to contribute to parents’ decisions regarding deaf children are documented by Decker, Vallotton, and Johnson (2012) (p. 328 #86). Examples of this kind of questioning include ratings of the influence of recommendations by friends, costs of services, and availability of services. Subsequently, hearing parents will be asked questions related to their attitudes toward deaf people generally and about whether they agreed with statements about deaf people’s integration into mainstream society, appropriateness and access to sign language interpretation, and school support for sign language instruction. Each of these items is supported by the literature developed in other cultural contexts on this issue (p. 163 #50). All of the survey items touching on decision factors, beliefs, and attitudes will paint a broad picture of how hearing parents in Saudi Arabia perceive the role of deafness in their child’s life. The third section of the assessment tool will ask parents to assess some hypothetical outcomes for school-based interventions for children with hearing loss. That section of responses will help gauge parents’ preferences for how their own deaf children should be treated in an educational context. For example, one item is whether the parent would prefer an outcome where the child can speak only rather than to sign only, which would represent an example of a question within the communication domain. We know from existing literature that how mothers view deafness and the “language ideology” of mothers play a role in what they plan to do in language (Mouvet, et al., 2013, p. 233 #14). Hypothetical outcomes at age 18 are provided with the purpose of evaluating the relationship between these ideas (as captured in the second section of the assessment) are related to real world practical applications of those ideas. Outcomes in this section will be organized into domains related to academic performance, ability to communicate with both hearing and deaf others, social experiences, and emotional well-being. Parents will rate outcomes with an option of “desirable” or “not desirable” – a choice that is designed to reflect their underlying beliefs, attitudes, values, and aspirations with regard to each major facet of the child’s life. Structuring the information in this fashion will enable a two-part analysis of the data that is returned. In the first step, the data will be analyzed in an effort to find out if each decision factor (such as the influence of friends, the cost of services, and the availability of services) were significantly influential in the hearing parents’ actual decisions. If there were such significant relationships, the study can report on those and weight their relative importance in comparison to other background factors – such as the degree of the child’s hearing loss and the parents’ attitudes toward sign language, for example. That analysis will form the framework of a model of parental beliefs, attitudes, values, and aspirations for their deaf child. The second part of the analysis will involve applying that model to the various scenarios/outcomes presented as desirable or undesirable to the parent respondent. In a way, the data from the first two parts of the survey will serve as an explanatory factor for why a parent may have responded a particular way on the final section of the survey. Additional insights will emerge from applying those beliefs, attitudes, values, and aspirations into a real future-oriented context for parents. Procedure Now that a design, a sample, and an instrument have all been selected, the next step is to decide on a procedure for data collection. Given the nature of the data being collected by this survey, it will be essential to use a standard procedure that does not interfere with the intentionally random sampling. In addition, to ensure standardization, the written survey will contain written instructions to help guide participants – rather than having the requirements of the sampling instrument explained to each parent individually and thus introducing the possibility of bias or forgotten information. Part of the initial permission-gathering phase in the case of this data collection procedure will be to obtain permission from parents to have the written survey sent to their permanent address for them to complete in the convenience of their own home and to avoid inconveniencing parents and disrupting children’s education. When done with the survey, parents will be able to mail the survey back for their responses to be coded and added to an electronic database for analysis. During each part of the data collection process, the information of parents and their children will be kept anonymous and privileged only to the researcher collecting it. References Alfano, A. (2007). Communication and culture: Implications for Hispanic mothers with deaf children. Miami, FL: University of Miami. Almasoud, A., & Al-Khalifa, H. (2011). A proposed semantic machine translation system for translating Arabic text to Arabic sign language. 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(2014). Ensuring language acquisition for deaf children: What linguists can do. Language, 90, 31-52. doi:10.1353/lan.2014.0036 Kurtzer-White, E., & Luterman, D. (2003). Families and children with hearing loss: Grief and coping. Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Reviews, 9, 232-235. doi:10.1002/mrdd.10085 Lederberg, A., & Everhart, V. (1998). Communication between deaf children and their hearing mothers: The role of language, gesture, and vocalizations. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 41, 887-899. doi:10.1044/jslhr.4104.887 Lederberg, A., & Everhart, V. (2000). Conversations between deaf children and their hearing mothers: Pragmatic and dialogic characteristics. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 5, 303-322. doi:10.1093/deafed/5.4.303 Li, Y., Bain, L., & Steinberg, A. (2003). Parental decision making and the choice of communication modality for the child who is deaf. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 157, 162-168. doi:10.1001/archpedi.157.2.162 Mbaluka, A., Kurebwa, M., & Wadesango, N. (2013). Parents mode of communication with their hearing impaired children in Gweru Urban. Journal of Human Ecology, 42, 1-7. Mitchell, R., & Karchmer, M. (2005). Parental hearing status and signing among deaf and hard of hearing students. Sign Language Studies, 5, 231-244. doi:10.1353/sls.2005.0004 Mouvet, K., Hardonk, S., Matthijs, L., Van Puyvelde, M., Loots, G., & Van Herreweghe, M. (2013). Analyzing language practices in mother–child interaction against the background of maternal construction of deafness. Language & Communication, 33, 232-245. doi:10.1016/j.langcom.2013.07.003 Singleton, S., & Tittle, M. (2000). Deaf parents and their hearing children. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 5, 221-236. doi:10.1093/deafed/5.3.221 Weaver, K., & Starner, T. (2011). We need to communicate! Helping hearing parents of deaf children learn American Sign Language. The Proceedings of the 13th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (pp. 91-98). New York, NY: ACM. Zimmerman, F., Gilkerson, J., Richards, J., Christakis, D., Xu, D., Gray, S., & Yapanel, U. (2009). Teaching by listening: The importance of adult-child conversations to language development. Pediatrics, 124, 342-349. doi:10.1542/peds.2008-2267 Read More