PARENTING BEHAVIOR OF HEARING IMPAIRED PARENTS

Purpose of Study: The purpose of this study is to explain the parenting behavior of parents with hearing impairment in an attempt to find out how they take care of their children. Methodology: Five hearing impaired parents are involved as an informant of the study. The method used is an instrumental case study with depth interview as a data collection technique and content analysis as a method of data analysis. The theoretical perspective used is four aspects of parenting behavior from Bornstein. Results: The results showed that among the four aspects of parenting behavior, the participants have little or no difficulties in nurturant caregiving, maternal caregiving, and social caregiving. With their hearing difficulties, they can do it with help from their parents or relatives. However, they experience difficulties in social caregiving, particularly in responding child’s emotional expressions and building communication with them, and in didactic caregiving particularly in handling disruptive behavior. Implications/Applications: The results of this study imply the need to conduct further research about parenting behavior of hearing-impaired parents, and parenting alliance between hearing impaired parent and their own parent. It also implies the need to conduct parent training that suitable for hearing impaired parents, especially in handling children emotion and disruptive behavior, to help them better care for their children.