A STUDY OF PARENTS WITH HEARING IMPAIRED CHILDREN AND HOW THEY COPE""

Abstract

This study focuses on hearing parents with hearing impaired children and how the formal and the informal helping systems are used by the former. 15 parents from the parent support group at the Singapore Association for the Deaf were interviewed regarding their uses of and dependence on both helping systems. The roles of the two systems are discussed in relation to four basic needs identified as being common to all respondents. They are informational needs, instrumental needs, emotional needs and financial needs. It was found that both the formal and informal helping system played important roles in providing for the emotional need. The informal system also provided for the instrumental needs while ilie fonnal system provided for financial needs. However, neither system seem to respond adequately to the informational need. Policy implications and suggestions for practice are drawn up from the data collected.