2024 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference
March 17-19, 2024 • Denver, CO
| Social Identity and Grief in Mothers With Cochlear Implants Following the Birth of a Baby with Hearing Loss
Social Identity and Grief in Mothers With Cochlear Implants Following the Birth of a Baby with Hearing Loss
Several researchers have explored the experiences of grief and social identity shifts in hearing parents following a diagnosis of deafness in one of their children. Flaherty (2015) utilized a phenomenological approach to explore the experiences of 18 caregivers of children with hearing loss, highlighting the unique perspective of the maternal experience. Whereas Flaherty’s (2015) inquiry included mothers and fathers, Scharp et al. (2018) explored the identity of hearing mothers who chose cochlear implants for their children with hearing loss using an interpretive narrative approach. These and other studies (Horne, 2015; Peñaranda et al., 2011) paint a picture of the lived experiences of the 90 percent of hearing mothers with children with hearing loss, but what about the other 10 percent? Using a phenomenological approach, Hardonk et al. (2011) interviewed Deaf parents of children with hearing loss to understand their navigation of cochlear implantation decision-making for their children, but the audiological profiles and cultural identities of the six mother and six fathers interviewed were wide ranging, with only one mother being a cochlear implant user and several identifying with Deaf culture. So then, do mothers with cochlear implants, specifically those who communicate through listening and spoken language (LSL), grieve and experience social identity shifts following their child’s diagnosis of deafness in a way that is like hearing parents, like Deaf parents, like both, or like neither at all? The case is made for creating space for mothers with cochlear implants who listen and talk to share their experiences following a child’s diagnosis of hearing loss. Implications for the impact of the proposed inquiry are explored, particularly for early interventionists and other practitioners walking alongside this unique group of mothers.
- Learners will describe the current literature regarding social identity and grief in hearing and Deaf mothers following the diagnosis of a child with hearing loss.
- Learners will discover a gap in the literature exploring the social identity and grief of mothers with cochlear implants following the diagnosis of a child with hearing loss.
- Learners will identify the importance of filling this inquiry gap, particularly for early interventionists to better understand the shifting social identities and grief processes in this unique group of mothers following the diagnosis of a child with hearing loss.
Presentation:
3353554_14855KameronCarden.pdf
Handouts:
Handout is not Available
Transcripts:
CART transcripts are NOT YET available, but will be posted shortly after the conference
Presenters/Authors
Kameron Carden
(Primary Presenter), The University of Alabama, kcarden1@crimson.ua.edu;
Kameron Carden is a Speech-Language Pathologist/Listening and Spoken Language Certified Auditory-Verbal Educator pursuing her doctoral degree in early childhood special education at the University of Alabama. Kameron has taught in an oral preschool programs, served families through early intervention, and provided outreach services to deaf and hard of hearing students and their teachers in public schools throughout the state of Alabama for over a decade. Kameron holds a Certificate of Clinical Competence from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, a state license from the Alabama Board of Examiners in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, and a teaching certificate in Speech-Language Impairment from the Alabama State Department of Education, and a Listening and Spoken Language Specialist – Auditory-Verbal Educator certification through The Alexander Graham Bell Association. Her professional interests include parent coaching and morphosyntactic language development in children 2 through 5 years of age.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
Nonfinancial -
AAA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
Nonfinancial -