Emotions in Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing and Typically Hearing Children.
Yung-Ting Tsou, Boya Li, Adva Eichengreen and 2 others
PMID 34323978WHAT IT FOUND
Deaf and hard-of-hearing children scored like hearing peers on empathy and emotion recognition.
But only in the deaf group did high negative emotion expression link to more externalizing behaviors. Better speech perception did not predict fewer social difficulties.
Key findings
01Parent reports showed no group differences in empathy, emotion recognition, or emotion expression between deaf/hard-of-hearing and hearing children.
02High negative emotion expression was associated with more externalizing behaviors only in the deaf/hard-of-hearing group, not in hearing children.
03Hearing-related factors such as age at intervention, device duration, and speech perception scores showed no significant correlations with emotional or social functioning.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study was cross-sectional, so it cannot determine whether emotional difficulties cause social problems or vice versa. All data on emotional and social functioning came from parent reports, which may overestimate functioning compared to teacher ratings or experimental tasks. The sample included only DHH children who used oral language in mainstream settings and had no additional disabilities, so results may not apply to children who use sign language or have other conditions. The study was conducted in Taiwan, and cultural norms regarding emotional expression may limit generalizability to Western contexts.
Declared interests
The study was funded by the Ministry of Education and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the lack of group differences in emotion recognition and empathy as evidence that DHH children have no social-emotional challenges. The study found that negative emotion expression specifically predicts externalizing behaviors in DHH children, a link not seen in hearing peers, and parent reports may miss difficulties that appear in school settings.