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. 2022 Jul 12;15(4):1145–1153. doi: 10.1007/s40653-022-00468-z

Resilience in Deafness, Adolescence and Gender

Shambel Molla Bizuneh 1,✉
PMCID: PMC9684370  PMID: 36439672

Abstract

Deaf and hearing Adolescents are facing the adversity of life like social expectations, academic and economic demands. The purpose of this study was to describe deaf and female adolescents' resilience with their respective counterparts using the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-25). Methods: The study was conducted on 160 adolescent (80 deaf [40 female] and 80hearing [40 female]) students who were selected based on multistage sampling. Quantitative and qualitative data collections were made through the questionnaire as well as interview. The study employed Mean, Standard Deviation, independent t-test, and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The results revealed that hearing adolescent students’ average resilience score was significantly greater than deaf students. It was also shown that female adolescent students’ level of average resilience score was found significantly less than their counterparts. Analysis of variance revealed that there was a significant difference in resilience score among deaf female, deaf male, hearing female, and hearing male adolescent students in which deaf female adolescent students' resilience score was the lowest. The difference in resilience between deaf and hearing students signified deaf students’ capability to cope with stressors and academic demands was less than their counterparts, and the resilience of deaf female students was found the lowest among the groups. This calls for health and psychological professional and families to provide adequate support for deaf and female adolescents to develop resilience.

Keywords: Adolescence, Deaf, Disability, Gender, Hearing, Resilience

Background 

Adolescence is a developmentally important, yet difficult transitional period in which teenagers and youths experience various changes and challenges (Blakemore & Mills, 2014; Crone & Dahl, 2012; Peper & Dahl, 2013). During adolescence, physiological changes including the brain are high as compared to later ages. This makes adolescents highly disposed of stress-inducing adjustments and vulnerable to adversities (Aoki et al., 2017; Fuhrmann et al., 2015). This period is more challenging for deaf teenagers and adolescents since life challenges related to developmental changes are additional adversities (Maxey & Beckert, 2017) that hearing loss children face as they are to cope with the challenges of deafness.

Hearing loss is one of the adolescents' adversities that affects millions of people in the continents and is estimated to be the fourth leading cause of disability globally (Bhatta et al., 2018; Cunningham & Tucci, 2017; WHO, 2015). This report aims to highlight the changing profile of global hearing loss over the next century, and summarize the actions required to prevent hearing loss where possible, if not mitigate its adverse impact. However, Adolescents with disabilities (including hearing loss) have remained largely invisible (Jones et al., 2018).

Researchers found that adolescents with disabilities focus on the stressors that they face and the negative impacts that stressors have on them (Groce & Kett, 2014; Bhatta, et al., 2018). Research made in Israel revealed that higher levels of test stress and terror-related stress symptoms were found in adolescents with hearing impairment, which is an indication of a low level of resilience (Miri, 2016). Adolescents who are deaf tend to have the least emotional support at home due to communication barriers with parents and those with intellectual impairments often face the most bullying (Groce & Kett, 2014). They experience high rates of social isolation and often feel stigmatized and unsupported even within their households as a result they are more prone to depression, loneliness, and low self-esteem than their peers without disabilities (Groce & Kett, 2014).

If children with hearing loss are not adequately supported to develop competencies to cope with adversities and school demands, they can be experienced with low academic achievement, which can also bring about less competence in creating jobs and getting employment opportunities (Olusanya et al., 2014). On contrary, supporting deaf adolescents to develop resilience is indispensable in coping with language, academic, social, and behavioral struggles in the general education, and social environments (Miccuci, 2015). According to Miri, they used more avoidance coping and less active coping than the hearing adolescents. Therefore, identifying and targeting the factors related to developing avoidance coping styles by adolescents with hearing impairment could help them to adopt more efficient coping strategies. This enhancing resilience is equivalently understood as the ability to cope, adapt, and persist with problems (Greene & Conrad, 2002). Moreno et al. (2016) found that resilience was an important factor in school adaptation among vulnerable school children including children with disabilities. This shows understanding the resilience status of school children with disabilities in general, deaf adolescents in particular, significantly influences their school adaptations and capabilities (Narayanan, 2015).

In Ethiopia, where adolescents with disabilities such as hearing impaired can be both shamed and blamed for their impairments (Mekonnen, 2018). In recent years, schooling for deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students in Ethiopia has increased at a fair state as part of the Equal Education for All (EFA) and inclusive education movement. In the year 2016, for example, the number of DHH students registered in schools was 10,379 (Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia [EFDRE], 2016). The government also has referred to international conventions, declarations, and statements related to inclusive education after ratifying the United Nations (UN) Convention on the rights of the child in 1991 and the UN Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities in 2010.

The Ethiopian Constitution (Article 9) affirms that all international agreements ratified by Ethiopia are an integral part of the law (FDRE, 1995). Within this legal framework, the government, along with other stakeholders, is trying to address the educational needs of DHH children though full access to education is not realized. However, deaf people who are at school seem to be at risk for psychological conditions due to the difficult situations they experience because of their impairment, which needs attention. Young people with disabilities(hearing, visual and physical) face intersecting barriers to inclusive education, heightened vulnerability to gender- and age-based violence, and increased psychosocial distress compared to peers without disabilities (Jones et al., 2021). In this paper, therefore, it is argued that bringing deaf children and youths to school without deep consideration of their psychosocial or life skills, of which resilience is one, couldn't bring about change in their quality of future life.

The other area of concern that could be understood well from the social and traditional challenges is gender. Gender is diversity as well as adversity that comes from social naming, cultural practices, historical contexts, and political compositions and beliefs (Momsen, 2010). In this arena again, Ethiopian girls and women have been oppressed for a long time since the history of Ethiopia so they were subjected to a high level of life difficulties and adversities. To minimize these hardships, the Ethiopian government had proposed, Article 35 in the country's constitution (FDRE constitution-1995) that mandates affirmative action as a remedy for historical discrimination against girls and women and notes the state’s obligation to eliminate traditional customs that harm women’s minds or bodies (UNICEF, 2017/2018). It was believed that being male was being blessed while being femaleness was being unblessed. This sociocultural dichotomy brought gender-biased treatment of boys and girls that prone to adversities and challenges on girls. This was an input that triggered the researcher to go through understanding the status of female and male adolescents’ resilience in the Ethiopian context, which has been an undisclosed issue in the study province, Dangila.

Research showed that men, women, boys, and girls develop a different level of resilience because of differences in adversity with cultural practices, societal influences, and political engagements (Momsen, 2010). Studies on the impact of resilience on gender provided mixed results. Some researchers reported higher resilience in females than males (Edwin, 2004; Mousavi & Askari, 2010) while others reported higher resilience among males than females (Lees, 2009). Some others did not establish any gender differences in resilience (Katyal, 2014; Sreehari & Nair, 2015; Tefera & Mulatie, 2014) whereas an Indian study by Prabhu and Shekhar (2017) showed meaningful gender disparities in resilience.

The above resilience research didn't indicate similar results across gender, age, and hearing loss. This was one triggering issue to conduct this research. Another rationale for this study was the cultural and traditional context of Ethiopia. Ethiopia's children grow with more economic and social service hardships so the resilience in Ethiopia may not be as similar as in other countries where previous research was conducted. Hence, understanding the resilience of deaf, adolescents, males, and females was found important in the Ethiopian context where culture and social service have their contribution to resilience development.

This research was conducted based on the research question mentioned hereunder:

  • To what extent are adolescent students resilient to adversity?

  • To what extent do adolescent students' resilience vary due to their gender and dis/ability to hear?

Theoretical Models and Frameworks of Resilience

Resilience is not a stable and irreversible attribute that exists or disappears, rather it is a developmental attribute that develops in presence of adversities or traumas (Reed et al., 2012). Many scholars agreed that resilience is an inevitability dynamic factor associated with human developmental ladders, in which there is an intertwining of environmental, emotional, and cognitive means that help to cope with adversities (Torres, 2010). Hence, related to disability, resilience is understood as individuals' capacity to learn and improve skills and character after the occurrence of difficulties that help to cope with disabilities. The skills and character of disabled people use their resilience in many aspects of life challenges they face in their developmental ladders (Stuntzner & Hartley, 2014).

In many research results, there are three major models to explain the features of resilience namely the protective model, compensatory model, and challenge model (O'Leary, 1998; Garmezy et al., 1984). According to the compensatory model, resilience is seen as the ability to solve problems, manage risk factors. This model focuses on psychological constructs such as self-esteem, determination and perseverance, and intellectual competence as means to deal with challenges and new environments (Ungar, 2004; Werner & Smith, 2001). This approach focuses on conceptualizing resilience as an individual's belief that they provide meaning to skills, potential, or resources they have to cope and adapt with hardships as well as new environments respectively. Resilience is the result of interaction between people and their environmental resources such as access to material resources, identity, relationships, cultural adherence, social justice, and cohesion to claim they are healthy against adversities (Ungar, 2004, 2005, 2007).

The notion of the challenge model considers risk factors and challenges as learning experiences to get ready for the next challenges and risk factors (O'Leary, 1998). The challenge model asserts that stressors and life hassles, at their optimum level, function as medications to get the person to develop tools or strategies to cope with similar problematic situations for the rest of their lifetime (Garmezy et al., 1984).

As the name refers the 'protective' factor model views resilience as immunization of risk factors and challenges before negative impact surfaces over the abilities to cope with. Through the process of protecting challenges, individuals develop fundamental skills overtime for a further protective character (Bonanno, 2008; Ungar, 2004). In this model, resilience is identified in emotional management skills, intrapersonal reflective, planning, problem-solving, life and academic skills (Ungar, 2004). Furthermore, the protective model focuses on the outcomes that arise from the interaction between stressors and personal coping qualities which are defined by the level of attribution to adversities (Garmezy et al., 1984).

In this research, the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-25) was used to describe disabled and female adolescents' against their counterparts. The CD-RISC-25 was used based on the notion of the protective model as it was supposed to measure the dynamic nature of resilience which alters and more develops because of learning and experiences (Madewell & Ponce-García, 2016; Alvord & Grados, 2005). According to the protective model and CD-RISC-25 scale, resilience allows us to thrive in the face of adversity. It is a dynamic process, that gradually develops and varies across age, gender, and circumstances (Connor & Davidson, 2003; Leys et al., 2018).

Therefore, the protective model is used to describe the status of the resilience of deaf and hearing in addition to male and female adolescents. The resilient measure is used in this study by addressing psychological traits that help to cope with difficulties and learning capabilities that come from social interactions among peers, teachers, families, and personal experiences of adversities. These factors are can be mapped out into protective models. Moreover, because resilience can be cultivated and have positive effects on negative feelings such as anxiety, studying resilience based on the notion of the protective model help us to design appropriate methods for preventing psychological harm and other negative consequences among adolescents with disabilities and gender disparities.

Methods

Design of the Study

The research attempted to describe the existing resilience status of adolescent students. This study also compared hearing and deaf/hard of hearing adolescent students as well as male and female adolescent students. This study was, therefore, fundamentally designed based on the notion of descriptive research design. Descriptive research is an appropriate choice when the research aims at identifying characteristics, frequencies, trends, and categories (Cresswell, 2012). The researcher followed a mixed approach in which a quantitative approach was mainly applied because the main focus of this study was describing adolescents with hearing loss and females against their counterparts by using the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-25). Since the researcher assumed that deaf adolescent students might not express all that they feel about their capabilities and ways of coping with adversities, a qualitative approach was applied to get supportive information from key informants through semi-structured interviews.

Participants

This study was conducted on 160 adolescent (80 deaf and 80 hearing) adolescent students. In Danglia Province-Ethiopia, there is a center for children with special needs, particularly children with hearing loss. Since this study focused on adolescent students with hearing disabilities, 102 deaf adolescents (40 female and 62male) students were selected based on their age range. Accordingly, deaf adolescent students of age 15–19 were selected comprehensively. They were enrolled in grades 7 to 12. Their counter peers were selected based on their equivalent age ranges and grade levels. To compare the resilience status of deaf adolescents with hearing peers, 80 hearing adolescents (40 male and 40) students were selected from the same grade level in which deaf students were enrolled. Gender proportion was considered so that 40 deaf female adolescent participants were considered totally and the rest 40deaf male students were selected using a simple random sampling technique. In Dangila province Special center, 5 special needs teachers were professionals in sign language. They were selected purposely as participants of the study as key informants since they could understand deaf students' limitations, capabilities, challenges, and adversities better than any other people around deaf adolescents.

Instruments

Recently, researchers used to measure adolescents’ psycho-social capabilities in general and resilience in particular, which enable adolescents to adapt to adversities and new environments. They used measure of resilience by the framework that advocated resilience is a “trainable and adaptive skill, for which the well-known scale is the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC; Connor & Davidson, 2003) that has been used and validated in various countries and population”((Madewell & Ponce-García, 2016). The CD_RISC-25 consisted of 25 items rated on a 5-point Likert scale. Different scholars adopted and administered it for the different populations so that the most recent reliability of the scale ranges from (r = 0.86 to 0.90) and item correlation coefficients range from 0.30 to 0.88. Total scores range between 0 and 100, with higher scores.

Hence, considering resilience as “a positive developmental outcome, resilience should be seen as an acquired, gradually internalized set of attributes that enable a person to adapt to life's difficult circumstances" (Alvord & Grados, 2005, p. 244), the Connor Davison Resilience questionnaire was adapted and applied for this study. The usual average score of resilience ranges from a generalized anxiety measure of 62.4(2.49) to the US general population measure of 80.7(3.23).

The Connor-Davidson Resilience questionnaire (CD-RISC-25) was closed-ended with a 5-point Likert scale. It assesses individual characteristics of adolescents such as self-efficacy, sense of humor, patience, optimism, faith, interactive skills, and coping skills which are constructs of resilience. A semi-structured interview was also conducted to solicit about deaf students' psycho-social well-being and how these students react to challenges and life stressors in school settings.

Procedures

The instrument was transformed in educational settings. Therefore, before administering to the study population, a reliability check was made through pilot analysis. The questionnaire was piloted by administering for 20 hearing and 16 deaf adolescent students who were randomly selected from the population in the study area. Then, the split-half reliability test was computed and showed a correlation coefficient of (r = 0.87).

Since participants were non-English speakers, lower graders, and with hearing loss, the questionnaire was translated into the local language and official language of Ethiopia (Amharic) and sign language to minimize ambiguities; enhance clarity, and check internal reliability. The Amharic version was also given to English majors and Amharic minor professionals for reverse translation to check if the instrument can give similar essence to the original questionnaire. To enhance the reliability and dependability of the data, the instrument was further given for expertise teachers. There were some ambiguities, vague statements, technical words, and long sentences in the Amharic version of the instrument. These ambiguities in the phrasing of questions, inappropriate wordings, and uncommon language use were edited, substituted, and revised respectively. At the end of the questionnaire, one general question was added to get some insights about what sort of difficulties they face and how they used to cope with their adversities.

To optimize the response rate, orientation was given to respondents about the purpose of the study and how they could complete the questionnaire. Professional teachers in special needs were enrolled to translate the questionnaire into sign language so that deaf students could complete it easily. This was done with careful supervision and the support of the researcher for two days. On the third day, the same questionnaire was administered to selected hearing students. This was completed within one day with the full support of homeroom teachers. In two of the cases, the questionnaire was administered and collected upon the presence of the data collector and sign language teachers.

The completed questionnaire was checked and arranged for data sorting. Since the questionnaire was completed with close support from administrators, there was no missing data. After the data was sorted, and coded, analysis was made by Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS-20). After Kolmogorov–Smirnov Test was used to examine the normality, Mean (M), Standard deviation (SD), independent samples t-test, and analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were analysis techniques that were applied for this study. Since one of the purposes of this study was to describe resilience differences among groups of adolescents (hearing males, hearing females, deaf females, and deaf males), ANOVA was used as an analysis technique.

The research used semi-structured interview which has similar content with the questionnaire given for adolescents. The interview was conducted with key informants in their respective offices in which interviewees were free to respond to every question without disturbances. It took 40 min on average for each participant to complete the interview. It was conducted in the Amharic language which is the participants' first language. The collected data was translated and made ready for analysis.

Compliance with Ethical Standards

The researcher maintained informed consent by making the research objectives clear to the participants, teachers, parent representatives, counselors, and school administrators. To ensure the safe running of the study, a permission letter was obtained from the district education office as well as consensus was reached with Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) to keep the ethical guidelines of child protection in the school. PTA is a special committee that involves parent and teacher representatives, school counselors, and school principals. According to the school PTA guideline, by the time research projects are due in schools, discussions shall be put in tables so that consensus shall be reached before conducting the research process. Hence, this research was conducted getting all these discussions done with the Committee. The general objective, nature of the research, and how long it takes to complete the questionnaires were explained to the participant students, teachers, counselor, and director of the school. All information collected from participants of the study was cleared for all concerned bodies as it was confidential.

Results

In the first place, it was proposed to see status of resilience among groups of adolescents. The result is depicted in Table 1 as follow:

Table 1.

Groups of Adolescent Students’ Resilience Status (N = 160)

Groups Mean SD
Deaf females 51.75 7.75
hearing females 61.00 9.50
Deaf males 65.00 9.75
Hearing males 72.75 11.00
Average Resilience status of adolescents 62.50 9.25
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Adolescents scored (M=62.5, SD=9.25) in resilience. In this case, if an individual scores 100, they have high resilience, and if they score below or so 75, they have a lower level of resilience (Katherine & Dan, 2012). An independent sample t-test analysis was conducted to understand the resilience difference between disabling and able adolescents so that the result of this analysis was presented in Table 2 below.

Table 2.

Resilience in Hearing and Hearing-Impaired Adolescents

Groups N M SD MD df t-test Sig. (2-tailed)
Hearing adolescents 80 67.00 11.50 8.75 158 2.931 0.03
Deaf adolescents 80 58.25 11.00
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Table 2 revealed that there was a significant difference between hearing and deaf respondents in the status of resilience. Hearing adolescents scored higher in resilience (M = 67.00, SD = 11.50) than hearing-impaired adolescent students (M = 58.25, SD = 11.00); t (158) = 2.931, p < 0.05.

The third objective was gender issue in relation to resilience. Analysis of independent t-test showed the result shown in Table 3.

Table 3.

Gender Difference In Resilience

Groups N M SD MD df t-test Sig. (2-tailed)
Female adolescents 80 56.50 9.00 -12.5 158 -4.404 0.00
Male adolescents 80 69.00 10.25
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Comparison between female and male adolescents' resilience status also showed that males have higher levels of resilience (M = 69.00, SD = 10.25) than females (M = 56.50, SD = 9.00); t (158) = -4.404, p < 0.05.

The fourth point was understanding resilience status among groups of adolescents. This was presented in Table 4.

Table 4.

Resilience among Groups of Adolescents Based on Hearing Status and Gender

Groups Groups MD Sign F Sign
Hearing females Hearing males -11.50* 0.01 12.71 0.000
Deaf females 9.50* 0.04
Deaf males -4.00 0.67
Hearing males Hearing females 11.50* 0.01
Deaf females 21.00* 0.000
Deaf males 7.75 0.134
Deaf females Hearing females -9.50* 0.042
Hearing males -21.00* 0.000
Deaf males -13.25* 0.002
Deaf males hearing females 4.00 0.67
Hearing males -7.75 0.13
Deaf females 13.25* 0.00
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* The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level

Analysis of variance of among groups of adolescents((deaf male[M = 65.00, SD = 9.75], deaf female[M = 51.75, SD = 7.75], hearing male[M = 72.75, SD = 11.00], and hearing female[M = 61.00, SD = 9.50])) indicated that deaf female students average residence score was found significantly the least level among hearing female, deaf male and hearing male adolescents, F(3, 155) = 12.71, p < 0.05. This showed that being female and deaf brings about a higher level of risk factors that are difficult to cope with.

Discussion

Status of Resilience Among Groups of Adolescents

The result of this study showed that the resilience status of adolescents was below the expected level of resilience as per the measuring scale (the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, CD-RISC-25). This implied given adolescents are living with lots of stressing social and developmental challenges, they are less resilient to cope with these challenges. Many resilience research and theories about resilience have confirmed that adolescents have a greater tendency to develop higher resilience as they experience adversity in many dimensions (Yates et al., 2003). However, the result of this study doesn’t support the notion given by resilience theorists. This might be because participants have been developmentally exposed to high levels of the risk factor which results in negative outcomes. Based on the Ethiopian social structure where female adolescents have lots of responsibilities to be undertaken in homes, females would be potentially the victim of sociocultural pressure in addition to age and disability adversities. Thus, it might be because of this the result of the study was found contrary to the previous research and theorists.

The Resilience of Deaf and Hearing Adolescents

In this study, deaf students’ average score resilience measuring scale was found significantly less than hearing adolescents’ average score. Deaf and hard of hearing or deaf children lag in communication skills; poor in communication may consequently result in a lower level of resilience. Many researchers found that hearing-impaired adolescents experience trauma more frequently than their hearing peers. Impaired and hard of hearing adolescents appear to be abused and this abuse often happens in homes, buses, or residential school settings. Like others who have encountered maltreatment and other types of harm or stressors, impaired and hard of hearing children often need trauma-specific mental health services to ensure their health and to provide them with skills they need to cope with their painful experiences.

The result of this study is similar to previous research in that hearing and deaf youths are different in many life aspects. For example, impaired youths reported that they have more mental health problems or symptoms than their hearing peers (Fellinger, 2008). Similarly, it was found that hearing youth reported more positive satisfaction and coping with daily hassles than deaf youths (Gilman, 2014). Deafness in youth is linked developmentally with a greater likelihood of a host of less than optimum outcomes, be they in the domains of literacy, mental health, social and cognitive functioning, educational achievement, vulnerability to abuse which in sum develop a low level of resilience (Sullivan et al., 2000). Deaf individuals face unique challenges and opportunities to develop resilience, particularly in the face of adversity. Understanding adversity is an important piece of the resilience puzzle. Deaf individuals face double times as compared to other able individuals (Harrell, 2011; Pollard et al., 2014). The adversity they face may include neglect, psychological, emotional, and physical abuse as well as educational exclusion including higher rates of child maltreatment. This result indicated that deaf adolescents have got a lower level of resilience implying that they don't have protective resources that they use to protect from risk factors in this stage of development.

Gender and Resilience

The current study revealed that male adolescents’ level of resilience was found greater than female adolescents; Contrary to this result, research conducted in Kenya showed that female students have greater academic resilience scores than male students (Mwangi & Ireri, 2017). Similar to Cecilia and Anthony, a study done in Australia teenagers and adolescents, resilience scores showed that females were in favor of their counterparts. Female students report a high level of resilience in communication, empathy, goal setting, help-seeking, and connectedness with people around them that signal better resilience (Sun & Stewart, 2007).

Gender difference, in the level of resilience, indicated the emergence of gender-specific behavioral characteristics at high school age; for example, boys have more a positive level of social-emotional development and a higher level of compassionate relations with others and social maintenance than girls. Gender difference in resilience is contextual (Graber et al., 2015). Since this study was conducted in Ethiopia, in which the social structure is more oppressing females than males. This may lead females to report that they were less resilient than males. When adversities and life challenges include socialization problems and academic difficulties, males can cope with challenges through contextual strategies more than females (Stratta et al., 2012), which addresses boys are better in protective factors than girls.

Resilience among Group of Adolescents

In this study, from analysis of variance, we learned that deaf male adolescents average score in resilience score was found the least next deaf male adolescents. This showed being female and deaf brings about a higher level of risk factors that are difficult to cope with. This is true with the notion of the challenge model of resilience. To develop resilience, most scholars agree that there have to be risk factors that trigger individuals to develop resources. Individuals become less resilient when the severity of risk factors is lower or if the severity of the adversity is higher so that individuals do not have the psychological and emotional resources to cope with the upcoming risk factors (Luthar et al., 2000; Masten, 2001). The result indicated in this study confirmed that deaf female adolescent students are immersed in a multitude of risk factors including social demands from the community for being female, developmental characteristics including lower self-esteem during adolescence, academic demands, and disability.

Disability and Coping Skills

Data was also collected from one concluding open-ended question. From summarized data, it was found that deaf respondents encounter lots of problems including being unable to communicate with teachers, other students even with the community. They confirmed that they understand the people around them after lots of demonstrations. They also faced challenges in classroom learning: They understood what the teachers were saying if the teachers wrote notes on the blackboard or showed them books at which the daily lesson is found. Most of the respondents explained they got difficulties in developing good relationships with hearing students for hearing students often become in the struggle to understand what deaf ones want to convey messages. As possible solutions, they preferred to interact with students of similar hearing status (deaf or hard of hearing); they also acknowledge teachers who can communicate with them in sign language. Most of their school day becomes effective by the time teachers support them.

Conclusion and Implications

Deaf adolescents' level of resilience was less than their counterparts. Deaf female adolescents' level of resilience was significantly the lowest as compared to all the groups in the study. This has important implications for teachers, parents, and professionals. This result signified that deaf students' ability to cope with life stressors and respond to academic and psycho-social demands is less than their counterparts. Unless resilience enhancement interventions will be made for deaf adolescents, their academic and social competence will be at risk. This could also lead to dependent youths in the community. Similar problems go with deaf female students. Remedial actions shall be taken by parents, guardians, school teachers, counselors, and other social services. Deaf and hard-of-hearing children need to be helped to develop strong resilience for current and later life ladders to ensure their health and provide them with the skills they need to cope with their painful experiences and life challenges. This can be done through family literacy, establishing psychosocial development centers and frequent training on parenting for guardians and parents.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to thank Bahir Dar University and Department of Psychology which munificently supported this research work and allowed me to take a study leave during which I was able to make considerable progress with the writing. I am also thankful to my colleagues who support me in editing the questionnaire, English and Amharic professional who helped me in translating and reverse-translating the questionnaire. I really appreciate sign language teachers who helped me in collecting data.

Funding

This work did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Declarations

Conflict of Interest

The author declares that the article review was done in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Authors Declaration

 For the manuscript is entitled “Resilience in Deafness, Adolescence and Gender” I declare that the manuscript has not been published elsewhere and that it has not been submitted simultaneously for publication as well. I really appreciate your swift feedback for improvement if any.

Footnotes

Publisher's Note

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