ABSTRACT
In recent decades there has been a proliferation of studies on the empirical aspect of the parental attitudes on academic development of children. Results show that family socioeconomic levels, typology characteristics, a suitable home environment and parents’ positive attitude on a child are factors affecting the academic development of the vast majority of children. Apparently, parents‟ positive attitude towards their children and family support increase pupils‟ confidence in their abilities and awakens the child‟s interest in learning thus improving their academic performance. The present study was undertaken to investigate the relationship between parental attitudes towards children with hearing impairment and parent‟s level of education, occupation, age, marital status, child‟s birth order and the number of children in a family. The sample comprised of 65 parents of children with hearing impairments in Kambui School for the Deaf in the Nursery, infant, class one, class two and class three. The purpose of this study was to establish factors that influence parental attitudes towards their children who are hearing impaired in Kambui School for the deaf in Githunguri District, Kiambu County. The study was guided by Zanna and Rempel component theory and Brofenbrenner Ecological Model. The literature reviewed revealed that attitudes play an important role in how an individual behaves towards another. This intended behavior also affects the outcome of the person receiving it. Descriptive study design was employed. The dependent variable was parental attitudes towards children with hearing impairment while parent‟s age, level of education, marital status, occupation, number of children and the child‟s birth order were the independent variables. Purposeful and convenient sampling technique was used to select the sample of the study. A questionnaire was used to collect the required data. To measure the reliability of the instruments, split-half method and Cronchbach‟s Alpha methods were used. The validity of the instrument was measured using content validity. Frequencies and Pearson‟s correlation coefficient were used to analyze the data. The results revealed that parent‟s age, marital status and child‟s birth order do not influence parents attitude towards a child who is hearing impaired at P> 0.05. However, parents‟ level of education, occupation and the number of children parents have, influence the parents attitude towards a child with hearing impairment at P <0.05. The study recommends that the government through the Ministry of Education and other agencies like NGOs, FBOs and CBOs, should create support programs for parents of children with hearing impairment to ensure they develop positive attitudes towards their children. It also recommends that The Kenya Society for the Deaf to provide early intervention programs for children, since those who are assessed within the first few months of life and whose families are involved in effective early intervention programs have a positive attitude towards their children. Finally the study recommends for further research to be carried out on parental attitudes towards children with hearing impairment and use different research methodologies.
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
- Background to the Study
Healthy parental attitudes results in acceptance of the child`s disability and facilitates therapeutic progress. Attitudes of society, families and people with Disability themselves contribute to converting Impairments into disabilities (Masood, Turner, & Baxter, 2007). The attitudes of specific societies are critical in assessing both the intensity of a disability and assessing areas where collective action is likely to fail the disabled community, and hence public action is desirable.
In addition to the attitudes of the general society, the attitudes of persons with disabilities and their families are important. At the same time, different sets of attitudes clearly interact, so that negative views about people with disability in the broader community are likely to be internalized in many cases by people with disabilities and their household members (Antshel & Joseph, 2006). Disability is perceived either as a punishment for the misdeeds in the past lives of the person with a disability or the wrong doings of the parents.
In 1981 UN/WHO studies estimated that on average 10% of national populations are disabled. However in 1992, this estimate was modified to 4% for developing countries and 7% for industrialised countries (Metts, 2000). The UNDP estimates a global proportion of disabled people of 5% (Coleridge, 1993). There is no consensus as to which figures to use: USAID uses 10% and DFID uses 4-7%. These figures are all estimates based largely on incomparable information, with
no consideration of cultural variations in the level of exclusion relating to different impairments (Yeo, 2001).
An estimated 650 million people worldwide, of who 200 million are children, experience some form of disability. Surveys conducted in 55 countries by the Disability Statistics Compendium show prevalence rates varying from 0.2% to 21% (NCAPD & KNBS, 2008). The estimate could be higher but the marginalization that the people with disability face makes it difficult for outside researchers to find them and to communicate with them. This is because in areas where stigma is attached to having a child with disability in the family, other members of the family may deny the existence of their relative.
In most cases, persons with disabilities may not physically participate in community meeting places. They are excluded from all manner of social, economic and political interactions and experience discrimination from birth or from the moment of becoming persons with disabilities onwards. The birth of a child with any impairment is often considered a tragedy and economically unfair to give an equal share of resources (Burnett & Farkas, 2008).
Whatever the cause of impairments, they affect the life of the victims, making it difficult for them to live “normally”. They have to depend on other people or the community to do certain things for them. Persons with disabilities have thus been treated with pity in all settings. This is because people believe that disability is a punishment or a curse from God (Rao, 2003). Cultural attitudes in most African states view a person with disability as not “normal”. People use very abusive, derogatory and dehumanizing names in describing persons with disabilities. For example cripple,
dumb, idiot, moron and imbecile. The African Kiswahili word categorizes them with „things‟ in the KI – VI class that is Kiwete – Viwete, Kiziwi – Viziwi, (Ndurumo, 1993). The current study was to investigate the attitudes of parents with children who have hearing impairments.
In everyday discourse, the term „attitude‟ is used to mean an opinion or group of opinions held by an individual about a specific object. They are seen as relatively fixed and stable over time and context (Hogg & Vaughan, 2002). Attitudes apply a subject – object relationship because they are formed in relation to a specific, identifiable stimulus and ones relatedness to specific groups, issues and individuals. Myers (1983), Shutle (1997) and Peter (2001) agree that the actions of an individual are largely governed by his or her attitudes, and that an individual will behave in a manner that will satisfy his or her attitudes towards the object. This means that attitudes determine the behavior of an individual. For a parent who has practically no knowledge about deafness and has a child stigmatized as deaf and dump”, this can be a shattering experience (Dharitri &Vinoda, 1990).
The parents struggle to cope with their own emotions and the reactions of others. Their attitudes towards their child change resulting in changes in responses towards the child. These attitudinal changes in turn may have an adverse effect on the child (McCartney & Taylor, 2009). The parents may start developing negative attitudes towards the child and the behaviour patterns too might change. It is against this background that the researcher sought to investigate the parent`s attitudes towards their children with hearing impairment in Kambui school for the Deaf.
According to 2009 census report, Kenya with an estimated population of about 38 million people had 187 818 persons with hearing impairment. The statistics further indicate that there were 89 840 males with hearing impairment out of the total population of 19 049 915 males and 97 978 females out of the total population of 193 621 73. This gives a ratio of 3.5 % of the total population of the Kenyan people who suffer from hearing impairment (Kenya Bureau of Statistics, 2009). This implies that many may not have been accessed due to the cultural and community believes that disability is caused by witchcraft, evil spirits or infidelity in Eastern Central Africa (Waite, 1992). In this study, the researcher investigated the factors that influence attitude of parents with children who are hearing impaired and the challenges the parents go through and the ways in which they mitigate them.
