Concerns of Indian Mothers with Children Having Severe-to-Profound Hearing Impairment at Diagnosis and after 1–3 Years of Therapy

Abstract

Counseling training in graduate programs continues to be underrepresented. If parental queries are not addressed adequately, they keep visiting one doctor after another. Objective. The aim of the study is to identify maternal needs of children with hearing impairment at two stages of habilitation, that is, just after diagnosis (group I) and after receiving 1 to 3 years of language therapy (group II). Methods. Two groups of mothers were asked to speak their queries about aural habilitation of their children. Queries were recorded, summarized, and categorized as per their priorities. Results. Group I mothers wanted to know about how the child would learn to listen and speak (45%), causes of hearing loss (33.7%), understanding the ear and hearing (10.2%), understanding the audiogram (7%), and coping with emotional aspects of hearing loss (5%), while group II parents had priorities concerning speech development (24.5%) followed by child independence and employment (17.3%), schooling (15.6%), problem behaviors (11%), amplification device (9.4%), duration of therapy (8%), future of the child (8%), and questions about how can my child get adjusted to the “normal” world (6%). Conclusions. Culture- and language-specific materials to explain these issues need to be developed.