Mothers’ emotional experience and communication with their deaf children

Background: The parents’ experience of receiving a diagnosis for their children could be a stressful and traumatic event, especially for mothers. Many studies have shown that these mothers could display high distress (Quittner et al., 2010), dysfunctional coping strategies (Ghasempour et al., 2012) and worse communication with their children (Vanormelingen et al., 2015). However, few studies have focused their attention on comparing these factors before and after the activation of cochlear implants (CIs) in children with a diagnosis of profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. The aim of the study is to assess the mothers' emotional experience, the quality of their communication with their children both before and after CI activation. Methods: Eleven mothers with deaf children before CI surgery, recruited from the ‘Guglielmo da Saliceto’ Hospital in Piacenza, participated in the study, which used a multimethod approach. First, an interview was conducted, focused on the mother’s experience of diagnosis. Second, mother-child interactions were observed during semi-structured activity at the hospital. Finally, the Italian version of the Parenting Stress Index (Abidin, 1983) and the Italian version of Coping orientation to the problems experienced (Carver et al., 1989) were administered in order to assess the mothers’ distress and coping strategies. Findings: Data analysis shown a correlation between emotional experience and mother’s distress, specifically the mothers’ anger and their negative perception of their children’s behaviour [r=.757; p= .007], between lack of social support and mothers’ high levels of negative emotion [r=.846; p=.001] and between elaboration of the diagnosis and realistic expectations about the child’s disability [r=.667; p=.025]. Moreover, a correlation between mothers’ frequency of prohibitions during interaction and a) mothers’ distress expressed [r=.637; p=.035], b) their total score of psychological stress reported [r=0.611; p=0.46]. Conclusion: The data show that both the mothers' feelings about the diagnosis and the social support received are related both to their well-being and their communication with children. Specifically, mothers’ feeling about diagnosis could affect mother-child interactions. These preliminary findings could have implication for clinical practice and the implementation of supportive intervention programmes for mothers after CIs activation, focused on the direct observation of the mother-child interaction.