This study examined how deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH) and typically hearing (TH) children may differ in their family system and emotional functioning and examined the relations between family system and children's emotional functioning. Parents of 106 DHH and 99 TH children (2-6 years) reported on family cohesion and adaptability, parental emotion…

For deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children living in an environment where their access to linguistic input and social interactions is compromised, learning emotions could be difficult, which may further affect social functioning. To understand the role of emotion in DHH children's social life, this study investigated emotional functioning (i.e.,…

Children with hearing loss (HL) are at risk for a lower educational achievement. This longitudinal study compared the school career of a nationwide Dutch cohort with and without HL based on descriptive data of the governmental authority Statistics Netherlands. From 2008 to 2018, 3,367,129 children, of whom 1,193 used cochlear implants (CIs) and…

In hearing adolescents, emotions play important roles in the development of bullying and victimization. Yet, it is unclear whether this also applies to adolescents who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH). The present study examines the longitudinal associations of anger, fear, guilt, and shame with bullying/victimization in DHH adolescents. Overall,…

Empathy, the ability to feel the emotions of others and respond affectively to these emotions, is an important factor in the development of social competence. The purpose of this study was to examine empathy levels in toddlers with moderate hearing loss (MHL) compared to toddlers with no hearing loss (nHL), and to explore the relation between…

Deaf and hard of hearing school-aged children are at risk for delayed development of emotion understanding; however, little is known about this during the preschool years. We compared the level of emotion understanding in a group of 35 4-5-year-old children who use hearing aids to that of 130 children with typical hearing. Moreover, we…

Children with hearing loss are at risk for developing psychosocial problems. Children with mild to severe hearing loss are less frequently subject to research, in particular in preschool, and we therefore know less about the risk in this particular group. To address this, we compared psychosocial functioning in thirty-five 4-5-year olds with…

It is still largely unknown how receiving a cochlear implant affects the emotion understanding in deaf children. We examined indices for emotion understanding and their associations with communication skills in children aged 2.5-5 years, both hearing children (n = 52) and deaf children with a cochlear implant (n = 57). 2 aspects of emotion…

Frequent somatic complaints are not only a problem in themselves but also related to other difficulties. So far, no conclusive findings have been reported about the prevalence of and factors underlying these complaints in children and adolescents who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH). Such information would be valuable for prevention and…

Although several studies have shown that deaf children demonstrated impaired performances on false-belief tasks, the children's belief understanding appeared intact when asked to explain emotions or behavior. However, this finding does not necessarily indicate a full-fledged theory of mind. This study aimed to investigate deaf children's…