Preliminary development of the deaf childhood experiences scale

We describe here the initial creation and validation of a tool designed to quantify certain unique life experiences of deaf individuals. The Deaf Childhood Experiences Scale (DCES) aims to provide empirical data on uniquely deaf life factors with the long-term goal of better understanding education, health, and quality of life outcomes among deaf populations. The methodology involved a mixed-methods approach of qualitative interviews with deaf community members to inform the creation of a quantitative assessment. This first version of the DCES comprises two main constructs-Language and Access, and Belonging-and was validated against Adverse Childhood Experiences questions, revealing a weak but significant correlation (r(568) = .18, p = < .001). The DCES offers a novel approach to better measure, and eventually understand the impact of, childhood experiences of deaf people that are likely salient for quality of life outcomes. Future work includes more validation efforts, plans for American sign language translation, parent and teacher versions, and further item revisions.