Self-Esteem in Deaf Adolescents

This study examined the self-esteem of two groups of deaf late adolescents: those with parents who are deaf (dD) and those with parents who are hearing (dH). Adolescents' self-esteem was measured on the Self-Description Questionnaire III (SDQ III) (Marsh & O'Neill, 1984), which taps both global and component measures of self-esteem. Parents of the adolescents also completed the SDQ III but reported perceptions of their adolescent instead of self-perceptions. The procedure yielded three sets of parallel data (adolescent, mother, father). Results showed that dD adolescents gave higher self-esteem ratings than dH adolescents on a global measure of self-esteem and on two out of seven component areas of self-esteem. Patterns of discrepancies between adolescent self-ratings and parent ratings of the adolescents are discussed.