[The Role of Parental Emotional Communication in the Socioemotional Development of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Preschoolers].

The Role of Parental Emotional Communication in the Socioemotional Development of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Preschoolers Abstract: Objectives: Parents' communication with their children about emotions plays an important role in children's socioemotional development. In deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children, emotional communication may be complicated by the effects of hearing loss. This study investigated the importance of emotional communication for the socioemotional development of DHH children and their parents' experience of stress. Methods: We interviewed the parents of 102 DHH preschool children aged 3;0 to 6;11 years in writing about parental emotional communication, parental responsiveness, children's communicative competence, parental stress, and their children's socioemotional development. We analyzed the data using path analysis. Results: The results show that emotional communication has no direct effects on parental stress and children's socioemotional development, although there are some indirect effects. Emotional communication contributes to a lower parental stress level (β = -.06, p = .04) via parental responsiveness and to fewer behavioral problems in the children (β = -.07, p = .04). Emotional communication also contributes to better socioemotional skills of the children via the children's communicative competence (β = .08, p = .04). Children with additional needs and their families are particularly at risk. Higher parental stress (β = .25, p < .001) and lower socioemotional skills in the children (β = -.18, p = .02) are evident. Conclusions: The results support previous findings in the literature regarding the role of parental responsiveness and communicative competence in the development of DHH children. In the context of family-centered early intervention, in addition to these important skills, parental support in communicating about feelings with their child should also be considered as a development-strengthening factor.