Deafness and parents: feelings and expectations of a gropu of deaf children’s parents

Abstract

The speech pathologist in its clinical activity verifies that together with his deaf client comes his family. The aim of this study was to investigate the feelings, reactions and the parents’ expectations in relation to the son’s auditory deficiency. With this study it was verified, by means of the analysis of the collective subject’s speech, that the families react in a similar way when they receive the diagnosis, even so with different expectations in relation to the child’s possibilities with hearing impairment. We concluded that speech therapists must learn how to listen deaf children parents in order to help them to get answers for their doubts and to get support and strength to show their feelings and overcome theirs difficulties with their deaf children.