Peer relations of hearing-impaired adolescents

Compared peer relations of hearing-impaired adolescents (n = 35) with those of hearing adolescents (n = 35) based on reports from mothers, fathers, and adolescents. Dependent measures included the emotional bonding, aggression, and social maturity subscales of the Missouri Peer Relations Inventory, the socialized aggression subscale from the Revised Behavior Problem Checklist and the activities and social subscales of the Child Behavior Checklist. Analyses showed that parents of hearing-impaired youths rated their adolescents' friendships as relatively high in aggression, but hearing-impaired adolescents rated their behavior with friends as relatively low in aggression. These findings were interpreted in light of recent research regarding the cognitive biases of aggressive hearing children. Mothers of hearing-impaired youths also rated their adolescents' friendships as lower in emotional bonding than did mothers of hearing adolescents.