Qualifying Exam Question – Class of Summer A, 2000

Dr. Carl Crandell – Counseling

In 500 words or less, describe the impact that hearing loss can have on the family.  Specifically, discuss the impact of hearing loss on the following relationships:  (1) Marital partners (husband and wife); (2)Parents/Grandparents; and (3) Normal-Hearing Siblings/Parents.  Be sure to include in your answer the notion of the family as a system and what constitutes an optimal and successful family.

There is no clearly defined set of personality attributes, coping strategies, attitudes, or feelings that characterize a healthy and productive family with a child who is hearing impaired.  The following characteristics help families function successfully: 1

•Appreciation of difference

•Willingness to adapt to change

•Attitude of acceptance                   •Mutual Respect

•Ability to listen to one another     •Flexibility of roles

•Drive for excellence with realistic expectations

•Sense of humor not used at the expense of others

•Acknowledgment of feelings & other points of view

•Ability to experiment with different problem-solving techniques

•Environment where people are encouraged to feel good about themselves

The impact hearing loss has on family members is as follows:2

Spouses:      The marital subsystem within the family is a delicately balanced system that is always seeking equilibrium.  Factors that lead to the preservation of the relationship; are as follows:

Disability is mild

Abundance of resources

Marital contract is renegotiated

Some sense is made of the tragedy

Well spouse is prone to nurturance

Tolerable substitutions are made for lost activities

Parents:  Anger is probably the emotion that is potentially most destructive to the marriage.  Guilt is also potentially destructive to a marriage if not dealt with effectively. 

Grandparents:  There is an implicit mandate that says that we are going to make our parents happy by delivering the nice normal grandchild to them.  It is harder for them to come to grips with their grandchild’s deafness because they hurt on two fronts, for the grandchild and for their child.

Siblings:  For some siblings it is a positive experience and for others it is negative.  The following consequences were noted by Grossman.

Negatives:

Guilt about being in good health

Sense of being tainted or defective

Feeling of having been neglected by the parents.

Shame about the developmentally delayed child, & guilt about that shame

Guilt about having negative feelings toward the sibling who is mentally disabled

Feeling of having lost their own childhood because of the too-early assumption of responsibilities.

Belief that the child who is mentally disabled had put stress on the parental relationship, which negatively affected the rest of the family

Positives:

More compassion

More sensitivity to prejudice

Sense that the experience had drawn the family together

More appreciation of their own good health & intelligence

Sense of vocational purpose & direction  (Many siblings become teachers

of children with special needs.)

Greater understanding of people in general & people with disabilities in particular

Optimal Families:  Basically theoretical.   There are five characteristics to an optimal family:

Communication among all family members is clear & direct

Family members accept limits for the resolution of conflict

Roles and responsibilities are clearly delineated, overlapping & flexible.

A healthy balance exists between change & the maintenance of stability

Intimacy is prevalent & is a function of frequent, equal-powered transactions.

.

Successful Family:  Four characteristics seem to underlie a successful family:

Feels empowered.

Self-esteem, especially of the mother, is high.

There is a feeling that the burden is shared.

Need to make philosophical sense of the situation.