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A Preliminary Study of Multidimensional Life Satisfaction Among Deaf/Hard of Hearing Youth Across Environmental Settings

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Abstract

A key aspect of life quality is lifesatisfaction. Interest in this construct hasincreased among children and adolescents overthe past decade given the differential mentalhealth and educational outcomes associated withlife satisfaction reports. Nevertheless, mostresearch has used general samples of students,with very little understood of how youth withdisabilities view the quality of their lives. Further, many students with disabilities liveand/or are educated in totally segregatedresidential schools or segregated day schoolprograms. It is thus unclear how lifesatisfaction reports may differ with respect tothese environmental settings. Using the Multidimensional Students' Life SatisfactionScale, global satisfaction, as well assatisfaction ratings across a number of lifedomains was compared among Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing(D/HH) youth living in residential settings andD/HH youth attending day school programs. These reports were also compared with a groupof hearing peers. Results revealed that theinter-domain correlations, regressioncoefficients, and satisfaction mean scoresvaried between the disability andnon-disability groups, and with respect toenvironmental setting. Implications of thesefindings conclude the paper.

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  1. Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology, University of Kentucky, 245 Dickey Hall, College of Education Building, Lexington, KY, 40506, USA

    Rich Gilman, Susan R. Easterbrooks & Michele Frey

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  1. Rich Gilman
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  2. Susan R. Easterbrooks
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Gilman, R., Easterbrooks, S.R. & Frey, M. A Preliminary Study of Multidimensional Life Satisfaction Among Deaf/Hard of Hearing Youth Across Environmental Settings. Social Indicators Research 66, 143–164 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:SOCI.0000007495.40790.85

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