^ P P T A N C E OF DEAFNESS IN DEAF ADOLESCENTS: A 
R E P E R T O R Y G R I D S T U D Y 
R T J A C Q U E L I N E - Β A L L A N H N E B . S C . ( L O G O P A E D I C S ) . C A P E T O W N 

Department  of  Speech ^erapy, Bjrag^anajhHospital,  P.O. Bertsham,  2013, 

^ M < ! t d v investigated the acceptance and definition  of  deafness  by deaf  adolescents. A 
6prtorv grid (RG) technique was administered to 27 moderate^ to profoundly 

r e P ired subjects attending orally directed schools. The responses ehciled indicated that 
t^siiblects ident'ified  with neither deaf  nor hearing persons, thereby denying their own 
rieafnMS  Subjects also described deaf  individuals (Dis) negatively but maintained 

tivp self-concepts  and displayed inadequate definitions  of  themselves and deafness^ 
^ L d L s have distinct implications for  the management of  the DI, with regard both 
to* assessment and therapy. Results further  demonstrated that the RG technique is an 
effective  means to investigate the psychology of  deafness. 

u w d i f s t o d i f  ondersoek gehoorgestremde adolessente se aanvaarding en definisie  van 
Η nfietd  'n "Repertory Jid" (RG) tegniek is uitgevoer op 27 matig tot erg gehoor-

t ™<ie. oroefnersoTe  wat oraal georienteerde skole vir dowes bygewoon het. Die 
response h^t aang^toon^ datdie proefpersone  hulself  nie met dowe of  normaa horende 
neTsone identifiseer  nie - aanduidend van ontkenning van hul gehoorgestremdheid. Die 
nroeiDersone he^ook "dowes" negatief  beskryf,  maar het positiewe selfkonsepte  behou. 
C d e r h e t h u i e o o k swak o m s k n U g s van hulself  en doofheid  gedemonstreer. tterdie 
bevindinge h * duidelike implikasies vir die hantering van gehoorgestremdes wa be ef 
evaluasie en terapie. Resultate het aangetoon dat die RG tegniek, effektiewehk 
aangewend kan word om die psigologie van doofheid  te ondersoek. 

The disabled person has many adjustments to make. Ultimately how 
he behaves will be influenced  by his ability to i n t e g r a t e his handicap 
with the way in which he sees himself,  sees others sharing his disability, 
and how he believes others, particularly tfiose  closest to him, in a 
normal society view him and his handicap. . ... . u 
A number of  studies examining adjustment to disability have shown 
that disabled persons do not identify  themselves with others having 
s i m i l a r handicaps. For example, Fransella' has found  that stutterers 
see behaviours and characteristics typical of  a "stutterer as unlike that 

F o ^ t h e d l a f  individual ( D I ) there are many factors  w h i c h influence 
how he is able to accept his deafness  as an integral part of  himself. 
These include his parents' reaction to the diagnosis of  deafness,  the 
philosophy of  deaf  education observed in the school he attends the 
reaction of  peers to his deafness  and his parents' ability to treat him 
and his siblings equally, particularly during a d o l e s c e n c e . Furth believes 
this stage to be critical for  acceptance of  deafness  and identification 
with the deaf  community. H e maintains that in spite of  a history of 
factors  promoting denial of  deafness,  the DI is nevertheless able to 
accept his handicap and hence identify  with the deaf  community. 
On the other hand, a number of  authorities have emphasized the 
dangers of  promoting separation between the deaf  and hearing worlds. 
They argue that segregation is never complete. DIs remain economi-
cally, financially  and, to some extent, socially dependent on the 
hearing world. 4 

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54 Jacqueline Ballantine 

Investigation of  the extent to which DIs do, in fact,  accept their 
deafness  at the critical stage of  adolescence is a difficult  task. 
Measuring psychological parameters in DIs by conventional psycholo-
gical tests presents problems which can be mainly attributed to the DIs 
linguistic and experiential limitations.7 This means that the norms of 
conventional tests, which were not originally intended for  use with deaf 
populations, may prove ambiguous and invalid when used for 
interpreting scores obtained from  DIs. 
The Repertory Grid (RG) technique described by Fransella and 
Bannister2 appears able to overcome these difficulties.  This technique 
is used to evaluate the psychological structure'of  an individual's world 
as he defines  i t . 6 The R G lends itself  very well to investigation of  DI 
subjects for  a number of  reasons. Test stimuli may be visually 
presented in the form  of  photographs thereby eliminating the need to 
simplify  items to a linguistic level where the deaf  subjects can 
understand them. Very little linguistic load is placed on the subject 
allowing him to respond at his own level of  competence. Evaluation is 
achieved by means of  a mathematically based model with no reference 
to norms standardized on "normal" or deaf  populations. 
Because of  these advantages, the RG was selected as an appropriate 
technique for  the present study, the two aims of  which were: 
1. To determine whether or not deaf  adolescents identify  with other 
DIs, and hence accept deafness  as an integral part of  themselves, 
2. To determine the way deaf  adolescents describe the DI, thereby 
gaining insight into their concept of  deafness. 

M E T H O D O L O G Y 
The subjects were 27 school children (10 male and 17 female)  between 
the ages of  16 and 20 who were attending orally directed schools. All 
were prelingually deaf,  having moderate to profound  impairment. Each 
subject intended to matriculate from  high school and was following  a 
conventional course of  study. Apart from  deafness  the subjects had no 
other physical handicap. 
A personal profile  for  each subject was developed from  case histories 
detailing the home background, scholastic record, personality assess-
ment and the nature of  deafness.  This information  was obtained from 
school teachers and personal record files. 
The RG technique requires an interaction between what are termed 
"elements" and "constructs". In this study the elements were a set of 
ten full-face  photographs of  matriculant school children in uniform. 
There were five  males and five  females  in the set. The children were 
not known to the subjects. Similarly, there were ten constructs. Two of 
these were supplied by the experimenter. These were "As I am" and 
"As a deaf  person is". The other eight were elicited by presenting each 
subject with various combinations of  three photographs (i.e. elements) 
and asking him to name some way in which two of  the photographs 
appeared to be similar but nevertheless different  in that respect from 

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A c c e p t a n c e of  Deafness  in Adolescents 
55 

U- Η nhotoeraph. Subjects were encouraged to answer in terms of 
t h e

 aHtv characteristics of  the individuals in the photographs and not 
p e r s o n a h t y charac c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s . Whatever c h a r a c t e r i s e was 
i n ' " T V he ubject was recorded as the EMERGENT POLE of  the 
g , V e n ,t The opposite, as provided by the subject was recorded as 
C O n S p ciT POLEPPThi P r o c e d u r e was repeated until eight constructs 
i V S n elLited to nfake  a total of  ten constructs with the two 
h a 'Ηed constructs These constructs were now expressed as bi-polar provided constructs. _ u n f n e n d l  o r h a s a m c e 

- d t s " h a t a nice personality, and were then noted as 
personality " n e u t r a l " by a randomly selected group of 

e
P

n htaring i n d f v  duals with the majority view prevailing. The s u b j e c t 
w e r e t h e n presented with all ten photographs and were r e q u i r e d ο 
I k t h e m from  the one which was most like the emergent pole of  e a c h 
instruct to that which was most unlike the emergent pole i.e that 

S c h was most like the implicit pole. This procedure was repeated for 
Γ ί  ten constructs and the ranked order of  the constructs was recorded 

T H E ^ R ^ w e r e analysed using the INGRID 72 computer programme 
J o e c i a l l y designed for  this purpose. This provided a set of  product^ 
moment correlations expressing the degree of  relationship between 
eacli construct and every other construct in the R G In addition wUhin 
each grid all the correlations of  the constructs with construct 1 ( A s 1 
am ) and with construct 2 ( " A s a deaf  person is") were squared and 
summeS This operation provided a measure of  the extent to which a 
subject defined  both himself  and the D I . 

? a
E b l ^ p r S o v i d e s a summary of  the constructs most frequently  used by 

subjects to describe themselves and the D I . 

TABLE I: C o n s t r u c t s u s e d m o s t frequently  t o describe "self"  and "the deaf 

individual" 

" T h e D e a f  Individual" 
u n h a p p y ( n e g a t i v e ) 
unlike self  (neutral) 
u n e n t h u s i a s t i c ( n e g a t i v e ) 
unfriendly  ( n e g a t i v e ) 
unhelpful  ( n e g a t i v e ) 
angry ( n e g a t i v e ) 
u n e x c i t e d ( n e g a t i v e ) 
like self  (neutral) 
friendly  ( p o s i t i v e ) 
unintelligent ( n e g a t i v e ) 
happy (positive) 
n o t w o r r i e d (positive) 
w o r r i e d ( n e g a t i v e ) 

"Self" 

friendly 
happy 
intelligent 
n o t a t r o u b l e m a k e r 
hearing 
n o t shy 
not angry 
not w o r r i e d 
popular 
has a nice personality 
deaf 
surprised 
confident 

( p o s i t i v e ) 
( p o s i t i v e ) 
( p o s i t i v e ) 
( p o s i t i v e ) 
( p o s i t i v e ) 
( p o s i t i v e ) 
( p o s i t i v e ) 
( p o s i t i v e ) 
( p o s i t i v e ) 
( p o s i t i v e ) 
(neutral) 
(neutral) 
( p o s i t i v e ) 

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5 6 Jacqueline Ballantine 

Two important findings  emerge from  Table I. 
1. Eleven of  the thirteen constructs most frequently  used by subjects to 
describe themselves are positively rated. 
2. Of  the thirteen constructs most frequently  used by subjects to 
describe the DI, eight were rated as negative, three as positive and two 
as neutral. This in effect  means that whereas the subjects described 
themselves in positive terms, they nevertheless described the DI in 
predominently negative terms. 
In addition, of  the 27 subjects, 19 aligned themselves with neither deaf 
nor hearing persons (p < 0,05). Only one subject aligned himself  with 
hearing persons (p < 0,01) while another aligned himself  with the DI 
(p < 0,01). No definitive  statement could be made about the other six 
subjects. The mean correlation between construct 1 ("As I am") and 
construct 2 ("As a deaf  person is") was -0,0358. Therefore  the 
majority of  subjects can be described as having placed themselves 
approximately equidistant from  both deaf  and hearing individuals. 
In addition, the relationship between subjects' acceptance of  deafness 
and their self-definition  and definition  of  the DI was investigated. The 
measurement of  acceptance of  deafness  was provided by the correla-
tion between "Self"  and "The Deaf  Individual" (i.e. constructs 1 and 
2). It 

was found  that subjects who defined  themselves inadequately 
tended to be unaccepting of  their deafness  as part of  themselves 
(p < 0,001). The same trend was also found  among subjects who 
defined  the DI inadequately (p < 0,01). Furthermore, those subjects 
who defined  themselves inadequately also tended to define  the DI 
inadequately (p < 0,05). 

DISCUSSION 
This study has revealed three main findings  about deaf  subjects and 
their reactions to their handicap. 
1. Subjects identified  with neither deaf  nor hearing persons and 
described themselves as equally distant from  each of  these groups. 
This finding  suggests that the subjects neither accepted their deafness 
nor conceptualized themselves to be hearing. This is contrary to 
reports in the literature which maintain that in spite of  many influences 
in society promoting an attitude of  denial by the DI towards his deaf 
status, the DI nevertheless is able to adjust to and accept his 
handicap.3 The findings  of  the present study suggest that these 
influences  do predominate and serve as the basis for  the DI's denial of 
his disability. 
2. Subjects described the characteristics and behaviours typical of  the 
DI 

as unlike that of  their own. Furthermore, the DI was described in 
predominantly negative terms, whereas the subjects described them-
selves positively. 
This finding  is consistent with other RG studies investigating reactions 
of  handicapped persons towards their disability.1 Subjects have 

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Acceptance of  Deafness  in Adolescents 57 

d e s c r i b e d the DI as "unhappy", "unlike self",  "unenthusiastic", 
" u n f r i e n d l y "  and "unhelpful".  O n the other hand, they have de-
s c r i b e d themselves as "friendly",  "happy", "intelligent", "not a 
t r o u b l e m a k e r " and "hearing". Consequently subjects have seen 
themselves as distinct from  the DI, a finding  that is logically consistent 
with their denial of  deafness.  In addition, they have seen themselves 
positively and rejected the DI and therefore  deafness. 
3 The majority of  subjects, who showed little or no identification  with 
hearing or deaf  persons, tended to have poorly developed descriptions 
of  both themselves and the DI. 
This trend shows that subjects defined  both themselves and the DI 
weakly. Inadequate definition  of  the DI is suggestive of  inadequate 
definition  of  deafness  and hence a lack of  insight among subjects into 
the meaning of  their disability. 
These findings  have important implications concerning the status of  the 
DI's self-concept.  In the present study, it has been shown that subjects 
described themselves in positive terms suggesting that subjects posses-
sed positive self-concepts.  These self-descriptions,  however, were 
found  to be inadequately defined  and associated with a lack of  insight 
into and rejection of  deafness.  This reaction indicates a denial of 
reality and the stability of  such self-concepts  must therefore  be 
questioned. 
In summary, these findings  suggest that subjects were experiencing an 
"identity crisis" concerning themselves, their deafness  and how it 
affects  their roles in relation to other deaf  and hearing persons. Such a 
trend has important implications for  the adjustment of  these subjects in 
the world dominated by hearing persons. As all subjects expressed 
intentions of  securing jobs which will necessitate integration into the 
hearing world, this issue is crucial to their future  adjustment and 
success. 

IMPLICATIONS OF T H E STUDY 
Implications of  the present study appear to be two-fold. 
Firstly, the study has shown that deaf  adolescents in this sample have 
been unable to accept their disability. This is contrary to views 
expressed in current literature. Furthermore, as Furth 3 has advocated, 
promoting acceptance of  deafness  as the top priority in the manage-
ment of  the DI, it appears important to incorporate the findings  of  the 
present study into both assessment and therapeutic tools for  dealing 
with the DI. 
Secondly, this study has demonstrated that the RG provides an 
effective  means for  evaluating psychological parameters among deaf 
subjects. This applies not only to the field  of  research but equally to 
assessment and therapy. RGs have been shown to be effective  as 
assessment and therapeutic tools in dealing with disorders ranging from 
stuttering to schizophrenia.2 In each of  these areas, the psychology of 

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58 Jacqueline Ballantine 

the DI has previously proved to be an intangible and elusive area of 
investigation. The RG provides a means of  overcoming these difficul-
ties. 

REFERENCES 
1. Fransella, F. (1968): Self  Concepts and the stutterer. British 

Journal  of  Psychology,  114: 1531-1535. 
2. Fransella, F. and Bannister, D. (1977): A Manual  for  Repertory 

Grid  Technique.  Academic Press. 
3. Furth, H. (1973): Deafness  and  Learning — A Psychosocial 

Approach. California. 
4. Heider, G. M. (1967): Adjustment problems of  the deaf  child. M. 

Fusfield,  I.S. (Ed). A Handbook  of  Readings  in Education  of  the 
Deaf  and  Post-School  Implications  Charles C. Thomas. 

5. Saflios-Rothschild,  C. (1970): The  Sociology  and  Social  Psychology 
of  Disability  and  Rehabilitation,  Random House, Inc. 

6. Slater, P. (1972): Notes  on Ingrid  72. St. George's Hospital, 
London. 

7. Vernon, M. and Mindel, E. (1978): Psychological and psychiatric 
aspects of  profound  hearing loss. In Rose, D. E. (Ed.) Audiologic-
al Assessment, (2nd ed.) Prentice-Hall, Inc., 128-130. 

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