RESUMEN
OBJECTIVES: The current study evaluated deaf and hard-of-hearing students' mental health in terms of emotional and behavioral strengths and difficulties, as measured by the SDQ in the Canary Islands. Furthermore, it evaluated the students' psycholinguistic abilities using the Spanish version of the ITPA. METHODS: The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) was used to assess school children problems. The Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities measured student spoken and written linguistic abilities. RESULTS: Student self-reports yielded different SDQ scores to parent and teacher reports. Student spoken and written linguistic abilities varied according to ten covariates. DISCUSSION: Perceptions about the mental health of children differed according to the groups studied. Perceptions about student abilities in the classroom were different, particularly the ability to reproduce sequences of complex and non-significant figures by memory. CONCLUSION: Two outcomes emerged: a) conduct problems were the SDQ subscale that most distinguished children with cochlear implants from those with hearing aids, and b) tutor and specialist teacher experience appeared as the decisive influencing students' psycholinguistic abilities.
RESUMEN
OBJECTIVES: First, this study aimed at evaluating the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and socio-demographic characteristics of children with cochlear implants (CIs) and hearing aids (HAs) from the 2 provinces of the Canary Islands (Spain) on the Kid-KINDLR_children_7-13. The second goal was to analyze parental background factors and the perspectives of their children with CIs and HAs on Kid_Kiddo-KINDLR_Parents_ 7-17. Finally, the third objective was to explore agreement between children's self-reports and their parents' reports concerning HRQoL. DESIGN: The data consisted of 89 children with CIs and 63 children with HAs and their 89 parents, respectively. The socio-demographic characteristics of children and parental background factors included demographic and audiological variables. Student's t-test, one-way ANOVA, post hoc analysis and 4 concordance correlation coefficients (CCC) were used to address the 3 aims. RESULTS: Children with CIs exhibited a perception of better HRQoL in comparison with children with HAs. Among other differences, children with CIs and HAs and their parents were significantly distinct in Setting (i.e., provinces of Tenerife and Gran Canaria) (t = 2.921, p < 0.010). Moreover, parents were significantly different in some background factors (i.e., age, socioeconomic status, and learning). While Cohen's Kappa values for most dimensions were too small, the ICC and Student's t-test expressed only concordance in the overall HRQoL and Physical well-being. CONCLUSIONS: Children with CIs and their parents demostrated a perception of better HRQoL than children with HAs and their parents. Overall, children's self-ratings of HRQoL differed from their parents' reports.