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Self-Esteem Research
Self-esteem is how your child feels about herself.
Doctors, scientists, teachers, and other people have done a lot of research about hearing loss and
self-esteem. We looked at some of the research and put it together for you on this page.
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The research we found talks about these questions and topics:
Do children with a hearing loss have lower self-esteem?
What if your child is deaf and you are hearing?
Is sign language better for self-esteem?
How will school affect your child's self-esteem?
What else affects self-esteem?
Learn more
Keep reading to learn what some of the research says.
If you want to know where we got the information, click on the research links.
Do children with a hearing loss have lower self-esteem?
- Not all research has the same answer to this question.
- Some research says that children with a hearing loss feel just as good about themselves as
hearing children [Emerton, 1998; Foster, 1998; Munoz-Baell & Ruiz, 2000; Stone, 1998].
- But other research says that a child with hearing loss feels worse about herself
[Bat-Chava, 1994; Mulcahy, 1998; Schlesinger, 2000]. There
are many reasons why this could be true. Maybe:
- She can't make her parents understand what she is saying.
- She can't understand what her parents say to her.
- She doesn't a deaf friend to play with.
- She doesn't have a deaf role model to look up to.
- She feels like nobody understands her.
- If your child has a low self-esteem, there are ways for you to help:
- Tell her you think she's smart, nice, good-looking, and funny.
- Focus on the things she's good at.
- Tell her that you love her.
- Spend a lot of time with her.
- Read our page on self-esteem for more tips.
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What if your child is deaf and you are hearing?
- Most deaf children have parents who are both hearing.
- Some research says that deaf children whose parents are also deaf have higher
self-esteem [Bat-Chava, 1993]. This could be because:
- They're not the only deaf person in the family. Being the only deaf person in a
hearing family can be hard.
- They can communicate better with their parents.
- But other research says that it doesn't matter whether or not the parents are
also deaf [Gurp, 2001; Deselle, 1994]. This research says what matters most is how well
the parents and the child can communicate.
- Learn how to communicate with your child. However she communicates, learn how to do it too.
- If your child uses sign language, learn how to sign as well as you can.
- If she reads lips, practice talking so that she can understand you.
- If she uses whatever hearing she has left, talk so that she can hear you.
- The better you can communicate with your child, the better she will feel about herself.
- To learn more, read our page on communication.
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Is sign language better for self-esteem?
- Some research says that a child with hearing loss who uses sign language has higher
self-esteem [Bat-Chava, 1993]. This could be because:
- She can say what she's thinking more easily.
- People who know sign language can understand her more easily.
- When other people use sign language, she can understand them well.
- Other research says that's not true. These scientists say:
- It doesn't matter whether children use sign language, speech, or some other way of communicating.
- The important thing is that they can understand other people, and other people
can understand them [Gurp, 2001].
- There's no way of communicating that's "right" for everyone with a hearing loss. This is because:
- Each child is different.
- Some children have more hearing left. It might be easier for them to learn how to read lips and speak.
- Children have different ways of learning best.
- Some children learn best from seeing things. They might like using sign language.
- Other children learn best from using the hearing they have left.
Parents have different hopes for their children.
- Some parents want their children to learn to speak.
- Some parents prefer sign language.
- To find out more about deciding how to communicate with your child, read our pages on
communication choices
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How will school affect your child's self-esteem?
- How well your child can read can affect how she feels about herself. Research says that
children with hearing loss who can read well have higher self-esteem [Deselle, 1994; Gurp, 2001].
- One scientist found that hard-of-hearing students who take
mainstream English classes have higher
self-esteem than students who take special classes [Gurp, 2001].
- This is because they feel like their hearing loss isn't putting them behind hearing kids in school.
- But some children feel better in classes with other children with hearing loss. This is because:
- It can feel good to be with kids who know what it's like to have a hearing loss.
- They don't feel left out of class discussions.
- Read our pages on school choices to figure out what school fits your
child the best.
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What else affects self-esteem?
- Research says that three things affect self-esteem the most [Gurp, 2001]:
- How good your child thinks she looks.
- How close your child feels with her parents (or whoever takes care of her).
- How well your child gets along with other kids her age.
- These things are also important:
- How athletic she feels.
- How smart she feels.
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Learn more
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Sources (in the order they appear above)
- Emerton RG. (1998). Marginality, biculturalism, and social identity of deaf people. In I.
Parasnis (Ed.), Cultural and language diversity and the deaf experience (pp. 136-145). New York: Cambrindge
University Press.
- Foster SB. (1998). Communication experiences of deaf people: An ethnographic account. In I.
Parasnis (Ed.), Cultural and language diversity and the deaf experience (pp. 117-135).
New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Munoz-Bell IM & Ruiz MT. (2000). Empowering the deaf. Let the deaf be deaf. Journal of Epidemiological
Community Health, 54, 40-44.
- Stone JB. (1998). Minority empowerment and the education of deaf people. In I. Parasnis
(Ed.) Cultural and language diversity and the deaf experience (pp. 136-145). New York: Cambrindge
University Press.
- Bat-Chava Y. (1994). Group identification and self-esteem of deaf adults. Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 20, 494-502.
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