Abstract
In this chapter we look at the interactive processes of risk and protective factors for deaf adolescents. We start by examining the typical experience of growth and development, looking at skills and experiences common to all deaf children and youth. Although we include the experience of youth in crisis (deaf youth in foster care and in group homes), we discuss not their dysfunctional homes and related challenges, but rather their functioning in terms of how communication, family relationships, and educational experiences affect their lives and shape their sense of self. A focus on the ability to deal effectively with the stresses of normal life, as Masten (American Psychologist 56:22–35, 2001) emphasizes, is an important first step to understanding resilience in deaf people. Our focus is not on the remarkable or exceptional deaf individual, but rather on how deaf adolescents deal with the everyday processes of life and avoid being beaten down by them.
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Notes
- 1.
Humphries’ definition of audism includes an assumption of innate superiority of hearing over deaf ways of being, including ability to hear, speak, use language, and be intelligent, successful, and happy. These beliefs and behaviors form discriminatory and oppressive experiences on both individual and systemic levels.
- 2.
In discussions of culture and identity, the capital D clearly defines a community of people who have common cultural norms and language and we use this throughout our chapter. See Padden and Humphries (1988) for more discussion of this concept.
- 3.
Pac-Man is a character in video games that chumps away on any obstacles in its path. In fact, Wikipedia states that the Pac-Man design “came from simplifying and rounding out the Japanese character for mouth, kuchi (Д) as well as the basic concept of eating.”
- 4.
The word solitary is from Oliva (2004) and used to describe deaf and hard of hearing students who are mainstreamed as the only such child (or one of very few such children) in their school.
- 5.
ACA members use the term “immersion camps” to refer to programs geared to a specific population such as youth with diabetes, cancer, etc. This term stands as opposed to the concept of “inclusion,” which to ACA members refers to mainstreaming a “special needs” camper into a “regular” summer camp.
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Lytle, L.R., Oliva, G.A., Ostrove, J.M., Cassady, C. (2011). Building Resilience in Adolescence: The Influences of Individual, Family, School, and Community Perspectives and Practices. In: Zand, D., Pierce, K. (eds) Resilience in Deaf Children. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7796-0_10
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