ABSTRACT
The presence of a deaf child has considerable impact on a hearing family... As early as infancy, there are reports of disruption in the development of reciprocal interactions between hearing mothers and their deaf infants. A few investigators have found these differences minimal (Greenberg & Marvin, 1979; Lederberg & Mobley, 1990; van Ijzendoorn, Goldberg, Kroonenberg, & Frenkel, 1992), but their findings are atypical (Musselman, MacKay, Trehub, & Eagle, 1996). (p. 556)
Most research investigating the impact of deafness on early motherchild interaction has compared hearing mothers and their deaf infants or toddlers to hearing children and hearing mothers. Those studies, almost without exception, found hearing/deaf (Hd) interactions problematic compared to those of hearing/hearing (Hh) dyads (Meadow-Orlans, 1997). (p. 26)
These quotes are representative of the prevailing view of the impact of child deafness on early hearing mother-deaf child interaction, but the picture they convey may be unduly ominous. Because of our training, behavioral scientists tend to focus on results that show significant
differences between groups, perhaps because behavioral scientists know the null hypothesis cannot be proven. However, this may result in a more negative picture than exists in reality. The goal of this chapter is to review research on interactions between hearing mothers and deaf toddlers to identify positive, as well as negative, aspects of adaptations by hearing parents with deaf toddlers during the second year of life. Strengths, adaptive behavior, and signs of resiliency observed in hearing motherdeaf child interaction are noted, as well as aspects of early interaction that are problematic or detrimental to development.
