The relationships among social-emotional assets and resilience, empathy and behavioral problems in deaf and hard of hearing children

This study aimed to investigate the relationships among social-emotional assets and resilience, empathy and behavioral problems in DHH children. One hundred and ten DHH preschool children participated in this cross-sectional research. Participants were selected by a simple random sampling method from preschool centers for the Deaf in xxx, xxx in 2021. DHH children were evaluated with the Social-Emotional Assets and Resilience Scale (SEARS), Empathy Questionnaire (EmQue), and Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Empathy, emotion contagion, prosocial actions, and prosocial behavior had a positive and significant relationship with the social-emotional assets and resilience. In contrast, peer relationship problems and behavioral problems had a negative and significant relationship with the social-emotional assets and resilience of DHH children. Empathy, prosocial actions, prosocial behavior, peer relationship problems, emotion contagion, and behavioral problems explained 67% of changes in social-emotional assets and resilience in these children. Our findings showed that empathy had the greatest role in explaining the variance of socio-emotional assets and resilience. The findings were discussed in the light of social-emotional assets and resilience in DHH children.

Automated summary

This study investigated the relationships among social-emotional assets and resilience, empathy and behavioral problems in DHH children. The findings revealed that empathy, prosocial actions, and prosocial behavior were positively related to social-emotional assets and resilience, while peer relationship problems and behavioral problems were negatively related. Empathy played the greatest role in explaining the variance of socio-emotional assets and resilience in these children.