INTRODUCTION

“Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy
and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.”
Helen Keller (1910)

The above lines are stated by an American author, political activist,

academician and the first deaf-blind person to receive a Bachelor’s degree.
Helen Keller was born as a healthy child but at the age of 19 months, she
became hearing impaired and blind as a result of an unknown illness but still,
Helen developed positivity and overcame difficulties.

Every human being is born to develop with five senses; sight, hearing, smell,
taste and touch. The malfunctioning or impairment in any of these senses can
affect the overall growth of an individual. One of the most important senses,
the ability to hear empowers us to connect and communicate with others.
Sound sensation and sound production are processes that happen in human
beings through which he/she makes the meaning of the world.

Hearing impairment is challenging at any age but it gets more difficult for a
child entering adolescence as he/she is already subjected to several
biological, cognitive and psycho-social changes (Williams et al., 2002,
Susman & Dorn, 2009). These changes affect adolescents in different ways.
For individuals with developmental disabilities, there may be prominent
constraints on the degree to which certain of the adult roles are attained.
Erikson (1968) featured the adolescent period as a time of strife in which the
individual ideally constructs an identity formed through the development of a
set of personal ideals and belief systems while developing an orientation
toward a future role deemed appropriate by society. Also, these changes,
during the transition into adolescence, may cause those individuals to be self-
conscious or sensitive as they compare themselves to others around them
within social environments (Susman & Don, 2009). They can be perplexed,
where they start to notice differences between themselves and others, making
them particularly susceptible to social and cultural pressures (Goossens,
Beyers, Emmen, & van Aken, 2002). Thus, children with developmental

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disability may chronologically reach adulthood without the same degree of
personal independence and autonomy.

Hearing impairment is more prevalent than most people realize. Recent

statistics in the WHO report have also revealed that the next three decades
are likely to witness a considerable rise in hearing impairment as 900 million
people are estimated to suffer from disabling hearing loss by 2050 in which
1.1 billion young people (aged between 12-35 years) are at risk of hearing
loss due to exposure to noise at recreational settings. The WHO (2019) report
also states that currently 5% of the world population i.e., 466 million people
worldwide have disabling hearing loss out of which 34 million are children.
With substantially growing numbers, it is essential to understand the world of
the hearing impaired since it is not only a physical deficiency but also affects
the psycho-social development of an individual.

Hearing Impairment: An Overview

Hearing impairment is the total or partial inability to hear sound in one or both
ears. According to The World Health Organization (WHO) hearing impairment
is a broad term used to describe the loss of hearing in one or both ears. A
person does not have hearing impairment when he/she has no or very slight
hearing problems and can hear whispers (at 25 dB in the better ear). Hearing
impairment ranges between slight to profound according to the audiometric
values as follows:

 Slight impairment: the person can hear and repeat words spoken at 1
meter (audiometric value in the better ear is 26-40 dB).
 Moderate impairment: the person can hear and repeat words spoken
in raised voice at one meter (41-60 dB in the better ear).
 Severe impairment: the person can hear some words with a better ear
(61-89 dB).
 Profound impairment: the person is unable to hear and understand at
all (81 dB or better in the better ear).

Hearing impaired individuals frequently communicate through spoken

language and can profit from hearing aids, cochlear implants, and additional

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assistive devices along with captioning. Individuals with more significant
hearing losses might benefit from cochlear implants.

Moores (2001) differentiated between the terms deaf and hard of hearing. A
deaf person is “one whose hearing is disabled to an extent that precludes the
understanding of speech through the ear alone, with or without the use of
hearing aid”. While hard of hearing person is “one whose hearing is disabled
to a degree that makes challenging but does not prohibit, the understanding of
speech through the ear alone, with or without hearing aid” (Moores, 2001).

Major causes of hearing loss have been divided into two broader categories
i.e., congenital and acquired.

Congenital Causes

Congenital causes could lead to hearing loss being present at or attained

almost immediately after birth. Hearing loss can be caused by hereditary and
non-hereditary genetic factors or by certain complications during the
pregnancy period and childbirth, including:

 Maternal rubella, syphilis or certain other infections in the duration of

pregnancy
 Low birth weight
 Birth asphyxia
 Unsuitable use of drugs during pregnancy, such as cytotoxic drugs,
antimalarial drugs, and diuretics
 Severe jaundice in the neonatal period, which can harm the hearing
nerve in a newborn infant.

Acquired Causes

Acquired hearing loss is correspondingly identified as Late-Onset Hearing

Loss (LOHL). An acquired hearing loss is one that began at some point during
one's lifetime, as opposed to hearing loss that was already present at birth.
Acquired causes may include:

 Infectious diseases including meningitis and measles

 Chronic ear infections

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  Gathering of fluid in the ear (otitis media)
 Use of medicines, such as those used in the treatment of neonatal
infections, tuberculosis, and cancers
 Excessive noise, including occupational noise such as that from
machinery and explosions or exposure to loud sounds such as that
from the usage of audio devices at high volumes for extended periods.
 Ageing, in particular, due to deterioration of sensory cells; and
 Blocking of the ear canal with wax
 Amongst children, chronic otitis media or middle ear infection is a
general origin of hearing loss.

Initially, it appears simple to understand the concept of hearing impairment as

it can be diagnosed through medical procedures but the impact of hearing
impairment is larger than the problems related to hearing difficulties only.
Traditionally researchers have mostly focused on hearing impairment from a
medical perspective. However, with the rapid rise in statistics of the hearing-
impaired population over the past few years it has started receiving much
attention not only from the medical but a psycho-social viewpoint also.
According to Kirk, Gallaghar, and Anastisiow (2003), hearing impairment also
brings many social and emotional difficulties along with communication
problems. The studies related to hearing impaired adolescents without overt
or serious concerns are found to exhibit characteristics of rigid egocentricity,
absence of inner controls, impulsivity and suggestibility (Kirk et al., 2003;
Moores, 2001). Sinott and Jones (2005) also reported a high incidence rate
for emotional disturbance and behavioural issues among hearing-impaired
adolescents.

Statistics reveal that majority of people with disabling hearing loss live in low
and middle-income countries (WHO, 2008). Thus, the need for understanding
issues related to hearing impairment in a country like India which has only
about 250 certified interpreters translating for a hearing-impaired community
of 63 million becomes more essential.

“India has been an oral country,” says Maden Vasistha, a deaf writer and
scholar who grew up in a village in north India. Flipping back through the

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pages of the deaf history of India a notable article is ‘the deaf and blind in
India’. This article was published in Silent Work, Vol.33 no.2 (Nov, 1920). It is
a photo-illustrated article and has interesting historical facts such as in 1920
there were 10 schools for the hearing impaired in India. However, the
previous work has been limited to certain facets of hearing loss ignoring many
crucial aspects such as the psychological and social concerns of the hearing-
impaired community.

In India, as per census 2011, 2.68 crore people are disabled with 2.21% of the
population. The census revealed that the second most common cause of
disability was hearing and seeing. Hearing loss is also the topmost cause of
sensory deficit in India. The statistics also show that the highest percentage of
disability is in the age group of 10-19 years. The prime contributor in this
percentage is hearing loss with 20% followed by 18% of disability in seeing.

What we have known about hearing impairment is largely based on statistics.

A child’s social, emotional and physical abilities cannot be predicted from
clinical audiological tests (Purdy et al., 2002). One of the main issues in the
knowledge of hearing impairment is from a broader perspective as it is a
psychodynamically significant impairment to social and intellectual
development also. The need is to understand and focus on other important
perspectives of a hearing-impaired individual.

As we comprehend that hearing impairment not only challenges language

development but many aspects of emotional and social development also.
The challenges become more challenging in adolescence as one is trying to
form an identity while experiencing physical and emotional turmoil. The
hearing-impaired child is likely to have compromised thinking and reasoning
skills and as this child moves into adolescence, he/she may experience
delays in abstract thought and moral reasoning.

Myklebust (1964) observed that hearing-impaired individuals think and

behave differently from hearing people in order to make sense of the world.
This string of thoughts can have a huge impact on the developing identity of a
child. As the hearing-impaired child observes and abides by to similarities and
differences between themselves and others, they also begin to reflect other’s

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interpretation of these differences. Developmental psychologists label this as
‘Theory of Mind’ since it shows that these children have an assimilated set of
conceptions underlying their understanding of the mind. This is much similar
to children’s “theories” in areas such as physics and biology. Children’s
cognitive organizations are not simply an assortment of facts they have
learned from and around the world. Considerably, children cultivate an
understanding that permits them to predict another person’s behaviour
grounded on what they make out about that person’s thoughts and beliefs.
Like a scientific theory, a ‘Theory of Mind’ allow us to interpret and predict
other people’s actions by considering their thoughts, beliefs, desires, and
emotions.

Theory of Mind (ToM) and Hearing Impairment (Premack and Woodruff,

1978)

The term “ToM” was coined by Premack and Woodruff (1978) referred to the
ability to inferr mental states of self and others. Theory of mind (ToM)
research in developmental psychology deals with the roots of children’s
mentality consciousness. Additionally, it studies consequences on children’s
social understanding and social functioning (Hughes, 2011).

Research has shown that children who are hearing impaired have significant
delays in their understanding of a ‘Theory of Mind’. Previous researchers have
speculated that the dearth of access to conversations in the environment
causes hearing impaired children miss vital information about the world. But
hearing-impaired children have some access to conversations, and, for the
most part, they are socially capable, even when their language delays are
severe. They do attain a great deal of information about the world through
visual resources.

Besides, much of the research conducted on ‘Theory of Mind’ skills in

hearing-impaired children has relied solely on verbal tasks to assess their
understanding. It is rather possible that hearing-impaired children have a
Theory of Mind but don’t have adequate language to understand the stories
that are typically used to test them. Also, it is possible that Theory of Mind

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skills are important for the development of social interaction skills, particularly
those skills required in schools. Astington and Pelletier (2005) claim that there
may be a relation between children’s level of Theory of Mind development and
their ability to learn by instruction and collaboration. They recommend that
Theory of Mind understanding is also linked to the growth of scientific thinking
and critical thinking.

According to Bronfenbrenner and Morris (1998), adolescents are affected by

their psychological processes and the immediate settings in which they
interact, such as family and school. 90% of hearing children are born to
hearing parents and it is estimated that 80% of these parents do not have
effective communication with their hearing-impaired children (Ridgeway,
1993). Without the ability to going beyond receiving instructions and
answering basic questions, a hearing-impaired adolescent is unable to share
their experience and emotions with parents (Ridgeway, 1993). This lack of
communication at home may lead to limited social skill development as a
family has a high responsibility to be a strong role model for them (Marschark,
2007).

Family System Theory

The child is not the only one to be affected by hearing impairment. According
to ‘Family Systems Theory’, any event that affects one member of the family
will have an impact on other members as well. Marschark (2007) noted that
hearing siblings may have a negative reaction to the hearing-impaired child in
many ways which can include annoyance at having to act as a baby sitter for
the hearing impaired. It can also include frustration due to a lack of
communication with their sibling. Also, there can be jealousy on part of the
hearing child due to attention received by the hearing-impaired sibling
(English, 2002). Further, this lack of communication can lead to various issues
which can negatively affect the sanity of the adolescent.

Indeed, future research work is needed in this area. Research including

hearing impaired and their families and communities has predominantly
focused on the struggles and challenges faced by them. In the field of

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education, research in hearing impaired has long focused on literacy and the
development of teaching approaches that would improve literacy (Marschark,
Lampropoulou, & Skordilis; 2016). In the region of social development, there
are several studies with hearing-impaired children documenting the greater
occurrence of behaviour problems (van Eldik, Treffers, Veerman, & Verhulst,
2004; Barker et al., 2009), while with hearing-impaired adults, authors have
pointed out the challenges of, and the necessity for, providing services to
those dealing with mental health challenges (Fellinger, Holzinger, & Pollard,
2012; Glickman, 2013).

However, research encompassing the hearing impaired has attempted to

provide balanced approaches to considering both strengths and difficulties
that arise in different groups within deaf communities, such as children who
use cochlear implants (Anmyr, Larsson, Olsson, & Freijd, 2012), or hearing-
impaired children interacting with hearing peers (Batten, Oakes, & Alexander,
2014).

Various other scholars have focused mainly on identifying and describing the
strengths of members of the hearing-impaired community. A study by Moore
and Mertens (2015) examined how deaf cultural experiences help to shape
hearing impaired adolescents’ resilience process. Rostami, Younesi,
Movallali, Farhood, and Biglarian (2014) found that positive thinking skills
training had a positive influence on reported levels of happiness among
hearing-impaired adolescents. A scale on Deaf Acculturation was developed
by Maxwell-McCaw and Zea (2011) to study Deaf cultural identity; its
theoretical structure is informed by acknowledgement of the positive effect
that participation in deaf cultural activities can have on one’s individuality.

However, despite this compelling research in the hearing-impaired community

that has emphasized strengths, there lies a need for additional research that
emphasizes the strengths of the hearing impaired. It is time for a novel and
more positive paradigm in the study of members of the hearing-impaired
community for constructing our views.

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Vygotsky’s study of ‘Defectology’ (Vygotsky, 1993)

The value of compensation for adolescents with developmental disabilities

was addressed by Vygotsky (Rieber & Carton, 1993) in his study of
“Defectology’, the Russian term in the 1920s intended for the study of
disabilities. Vygotsky maintained that children with developmental disabilities
adopt compensation processes along a “roundabout path” that is, they adapt
to developmental challenges by constructing different approaches or
developing different goals. In this way, the individual with a disability
“transforms the minus of the handicap into the plus of compensation”. Youth
vary in the range of compensatory strategies that have been available to
them, based only partially on the nature and severity of their disability.

According to Vygotsky, the reserve of compensatory forces is more a creation

of the “social-collective life of the child”. Thus, the opportunities provided to
those with disabilities are related to the type of compensatory behaviours and
strategies that can be employed. From this perspective, the availability of
opportunities for the adolescent with developmental disabilities to enhance
appropriate compensatory strategies is central to optimal development in
different aspects of life. Some leaders in the hearing impaired community
have embraced the concept of Deaf Gain, which essentially challenges the
emphasis typically placed on hearing loss, and instead focuses on how being
deaf can contribute to the cultural diversity of the human experience (Bauman
& Murray, 2009; Holcomb, 2010).

One of the most essential psychological aspects of life is happiness. It is one

of the most common areas of research in positive psychology, which has
recently been widely studied in the field of child and adolescent population
(Stewart, Watson, Clark, Ebmeier & Deary, 2010). The important role of
happiness in mental health, physical health, efficiency, productivity, and social
contributions has drawn the attention of researchers in the sections of
psychology, and social sciences to the components influencing happiness
(Neshatdoust, Mehrabi, Kalantari, Palahang, & Soltani, 2007). A search for
research that has investigated happiness in hearing-impaired individuals
generates limited results that are mostly conducted from hearing versus

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hearing impaired perspectives. This points towards a long list of possible
questions.

 How is happiness defined by hearing-impaired people?

 What are the paths to happiness among the diverse community of deaf
and hard-of-hearing people?
 Are there developmental characteristics to it?

These sorts of questions deserve merit on their own, and should not simply be
framed as whether deaf or hard-of-hearing people are as happy as hearing
people, or as happy as people with disabilities. Learning about how hearing-
impaired individuals come to be happy is significant in its own right as
happiness, rather than amendment, should be life’s goal. Evaluations of
happiness among children and adolescents with disabilities are sparse,
especially those taking into consideration the specific effects of school and
environmental variables. Thus, learning about factors contributing to
happiness among hearing impaired adolescents is important in its own right
as happiness.

HAPPINESS

Since the time of Aristotle (1925), the search for happiness and the
accomplishment of the ‘good life’ has been a chief concern among
philosophers and theologians and was incorporated as a foundational mission
of psychology (Seligman 2002; Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000).
Conceptually, the word happiness is often used interchangeably with quality
of life (Veenhoven, 2005), subjective well-being (Levett, 2010), life
satisfaction, peak experiences, and essential in maintaining health (Bekhet et
al., 2008). Argyle (1987) has conceptualized happiness as a positive inner
experience, the highest good, and the ultimate motivator for all human
behaviours and as the degree to which an individual judged the overall quality
of his or her life. The connotation of happiness is diverse to different
individuals with different means and techniques to accomplish it. Thus, human
happiness cannot be definite, since people make selections of their own and it
varies from person to person.

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Judgments of happiness involve global affective self-appraisals and affect
inherently subjective ratings (Myers & Diener, 1995). Chronic or long-term
happiness is the moderately stable level of positive well-being one
experiences over a specific period, such as 2 or 5 months (Lyubomirsky &
Lepper, 1999; Lyubomirsky, 2001). The investigation shows that significant
life events affect SWB only for a limited period contradicts past beliefs.
Various other findings show that personal disasters and major disabilities
usually do not lower SWB unless the trauma happened recently (Matlin &
Stang, 1978; Diener, E. & Diener, C., 1996). A key psychoanalytic principle
depicts the long-term role of events occurring early in life. The long-term
effects of childhood and adult adversity can be investigated or studied on later
distress in certain life situations of any individual (Kessler, 1979; Turner &
Lloyd, 1995; Wheaton, Roszell, & Hall, 1997) as well as SWB (Royse, Rompf,
& Dhooper, 1993; Stallings, Gatz, Baker, & Bengtson, 1997). Lyubomirsky,
King, and Diener, (2005) reviewed studies showing that happiness and high
chronic levels of positive affect have a positive relationship in terms of marital
quality, creativity, sociability, and productivity.

Happiness, or “subjective wellbeing”, a term that is used synonymously, refers

to the subjective assessment of the quality of life or, in other words, the way
people evaluate their lives. These evaluations can be both cognitive and
affective, and refer to life as a whole and/or to specific domains of it, such as
work and social life (Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999). Happiness
comprises of several distinctive factors, such as satisfaction with life as a
whole or with substantial life domains (for example; satisfaction with social or
work-life), positive affect and low levels of negative affect (Diener, 2000).
Additionally, happiness can be defined in terms of self-realization or self-
actualization (McGregor & Little, 1998) and it consists of cognitive-evaluative
elements concerning self-esteem and optimism, a sense of personal and
environmental control, self-efficacy, positive relations with others, etc.
(Meleddu, Guicciardi, Scalas, & Fadda, 2012).

According to Hills and Argyle (2001), happiness is a multidimensional

construct comprising both emotional and cognitive elements. The three main
components of happiness have been recognized as positive affect, high level

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of satisfaction over a period, and the absence of negative feelings such as
depression and anxiety (Argyle & Crossland, 1987). Happiness has also been
conceptualized as a positive inner experience, the highest good, and the
ultimate motivator for all human behaviours (Argyle, 1987; Lu et al., 2001). It
has also been defined as “the preponderance of positive affect over negative
affect with a distinct focus on the affective evaluation of one’s life situation”
(Diener, 1984,).

On a theoretical level, happiness has two key approaches: 1) the hedonic

approach that affirms that happiness is the presence of positive affection and
the absence of negative affection; and 2) the eudemonic approach, which
states that happiness is the consequence of full psychological functioning
through which the person develops his or her potential (Ferraro and Reid;
2013).

Objective List theory (Sen, 1985 & Nussbaum, 1992) embeds happiness as
separated from feeling and on a list of "truly valuable" things in the real world.
It embraces that happiness consists of a human life that achieves certain
things from a list of worthwhile pursuits: such a list might comprise of career
endeavours, friendship, material contentment, civic essence, loveliness,
education, love, knowledge, and good integrity. Authentic Happiness theory
(Seligman, 2002) holds that there are three different kinds of happiness: the
Pleasant Life (pleasures), the Good Life (engagement), and the Meaningful
Life. The first two are subjective, but the third is at least partly objective and
settles in fitting to and serving what is greater and more valuable than just the
self’s pleasures and desires.

Happiness has also been shown to predict people’s physical health; in other
words, people who are happier at a particular point in time are found to be
healthier months or years later in their life. In line with eudemonism, it is
noteworthy to mention the Psychological Well-being Multidimensional model
(Ryff, 1989) focused on the fulfilment of human potential through six key
features: autonomy, environmental control, personal growth, positive
relationships with others, purpose in life, and self-acceptance (Ryff, 2017).

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Both approaches can be integrated with the “three dimensions of happiness”
model (Seligman, 2002) which are: 1) a pleasant life, understood as a
pleasant feeling towards past, present and future; 2) a dedicated life, with
positive individual features, comprising character strengths and abilities; and
3) a meaningful life, to help and to belong to positive organizations.
Subsequently, this model favoured the appearance of the Strengths Model
(Peterson, Ruch, Beermann, Park & Seligman, 2007) which focuses on
studying happiness in strengths and virtues. Accordingly, they reinforce the
idea of the existence of factors that determine happiness (Lyubomirsky,
Sheldon & Schkade, 2005). Further, the Science of Happiness model
(Lyubomirsky, 2008) claimed that happiness can be increased by an
individual through certain activities. For that matter, such a fundamental
period as adolescence is the ideal moment to enhance it.

If we explore studies among adolescents, most of these display above

average life satisfaction levels (Gilman & Huebner, 2000, 2003; Huebner
2004). Nickerson and Nagle (2004) pointed out that relationship with peers
become more important at the point in life where individuals are adolescents,
whereas the study also concluded that peer and parent relations were highly
correlated with general life satisfaction and attachment relationships predicted
positive wellbeing for adolescents. A study by Suldo, Shaffer, and Riley
(2008) revealed that adolescents with sound relationships with educators and
fondness for school had higher levels of life satisfaction.

Freely-chosen leisure activities and especially physical exercise (Sacker &

Cable, 2006; Holder, Coleman, & Sehn, 2009) are also significant predictors
of adolescent happiness and well-being. Besides, sport encourages health,
increases self-confidence and contributes to a satisfying life (Csikszentmihalyi
& Hunter, 2003). Therefore, social affiliation could develop the positive effects
of physical workout (Fredricks et al., 2002; Holder et al., 2009). Physical
appearance and happiness have shown a weak correlation (Diener, 1995;
Holder & Coleman, 2008). Conversely, good looks are interrelated with
popularity (Feingold, 1992) and make strong implications about extraversion
and social competency perhaps enabling more friendships (Eagly, Ashmore,
Makhijani, & Longo, 1991). Likewise, self-rated desirability is linked to
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happiness (Neto, 2001), perhaps through self-esteem, which strongly
foresees happiness and contentment (Huebner, Gilman, & Laughlin, 1999).

Several studies have also shown that factors like Learning difficulties, mental
disabilities, or IQ do not seem to be connected with happiness (Brantley,
Huebner, & Nagle, 2002; McCullough & Huebner, 2003; Suldo, Riley, &
Shaffer, 2006). A study also revealed that special class placement can predict
lowered levels of happiness. Numerous factors were comprised in this result
(Uusitalo-Malmivaara et al., 2012). Directed by the self-determination theory
of Deci and Ryan (1985), Baker and colleagues found three most noteworthy
school practices that are associated with better school satisfaction: (a) the
child’s meaningful relations to teachers and peers, (b) child’s sense of ability
as learners, and (c) child’s sense of autonomy and self-regulation (Baker,
Dilly, Aupperlee, & Patil, 2003).

Although we have vast research in the area of factors affecting hearing

adolescent’s happiness, it is still a challenge to unravel predictors and
consequences of happiness among hearing-impaired adolescents. Examining
the lived experience of individuals who comprise the hearing-impaired
community from different frame grants a much-needed perspective on “what
is the good life?” Application of a Positive Psychology frame of the
investigation will not only permit for a balanced perspective on the
understandings of hearing-impaired individuals, but it will also inform and
enhance interpretation of the proficiencies of a group of people whose
“voices” are not usually incorporated in studies of positive psychology, thereby
promoting the field of positive psychology by including greater diversity also
(Christopher & Howe, 2014).

In studying predictors of happiness during early adolescence, it is important to

first realize that adolescence is a period in which children want to fit in and not
be different, for example, due to their hearing loss. Unmanaged hearing loss
can have an impact on education and general well-being (Northern & Downs,
1991). As per studies conducted with disabled populations, when standard
research procedures and quantitative methods are used in search with the
hearing-impaired community, results frequently display “less desirable

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outcomes.” Allahi et al. (2012) compared deaf and blind exceptional children
(including those with learning disabilities, reduced attention, emotional and
behavioural challenges, intellectual disabilities, communication disorders, etc.)
on Diener’s Satisfaction with Life questionnaire (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, &
Griffin, 1985); hearing impaired students reported greater satisfaction than did
blind students, although both seem to be less satisfied than typically
developing peers.

Cambra (2005) related the feelings and emotions of adolescents with hearing
impaired with a sentence completion task and examined their emotional state,
inclinations, and needs for change as well as their perception of the
consequences of being hearing impaired. Though, noteworthy differences
were seen in what made them happiest and the things they would want to
modify. The hearing-impaired adolescents are happy when they receive gifts
and take part in recreational activities; in dissimilarity, the hearing adolescents
are happier to have good relationships with their friends and family, and when
social problems are solved and there is peace in the world.

According to Sheridan (2001), hearing impaired adolescents showed that they

could be happy, intelligent, and fully functioning and contributing members of
society, provided there were effective language and communication at home
and school. Fredrickson’s (2001) ‘broaden and build theory’ proposes that
being subjected to positive emotions develops people’s momentary thought-
action repertoires and constructs personal resources, together with intellectual
resources. During the initial years of adolescence, the classroom is a very
significant perspective in which they devote a great part of their everyday life
(Rubin et al., 2006) and is a critical context for feelings of well-being.
Supportive environments at home and school, in which they can assert
themselves as deaf children, provide them with a secure space to develop
creative coping strategies to deal with challenges in their way. Despite the
obstacles in life, deaf children will be able to feel happy and fulfilled.

Negative impacts of disability on happiness have been consistently

documented (Mehnert, Krauss, Nadler, & Boyd, 1990; Uppal, 2006; Lucas,
2007; Oswald & Powdthavee, 2008; Powdthavee, 2009). However, there are

15
contradictory findings regarding temporality, or how long the effects of
disability on happiness last. Lucas (2007) and Oswald and Powdthavee
(2008) utilized the same data (British Household Panel Survey [BHPS]), but
they disagree about whether individuals adapt to disability in terms of their life
satisfaction. The researchers from both studies noticed that severe disability
has an adverse influence on life satisfaction, but Lucas (2007) found that
individuals with disabilities were not expected to attain a level of life
satisfaction that was equivalent to their pre-disability level, while Oswald and
Powdthavee (2008) found that maximum people with disability were able to
improve at least a significant amount (30% to 50%) of their life satisfaction. As
seen through various aspects, a person’s expressed happiness consists of
cognitive and emotional dimensions. The emotional aspect of happiness can
be affected by innumerable factors. One of these factors can be emotional
intelligence.

Emotional intelligence has a great effect on memory health, perception of

experience, judgment, decision making, and mental development (Kaschub;
2002). On the other hand, hearing impairment can influence the elements of
emotional intelligence such as self-awareness, social awareness, and
relationship management. Studies have shown that low emotional intelligence
correlates positively with weak self-concept, isolation, despair, and anxiety
(Ashori M, Jalil-Abkenar SS, Hasanzadeh S, Pourmohamadreza-Tajrishi M;
2013). It seems that the mental health of hearing-impaired students can be
influenced by emotional intelligence. However, few studies have focused on
the hearing-impaired population from the perspective of emotional
intelligence. Therefore, it is essential to focus on the emotional perspective of
hearing-impaired adolescents to promote their mental health.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

The origin of emotional intelligence (EI) can be discovered from the model of
“social intelligence,” formulated by E. L. Thorndike (1920) denoted to the
ability to understand and deal with people and to act wisely in human
relationships. Its roots rest in Gardner’s work on multiple intelligences and his
conceptions of intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligence. In the words of

16
Gardner (1999), “interpersonal intelligence signifies one’s ability to recognize
the intentions, motivations, and wants of others and, subsequently, to work
efficiently with others”. In contrast, “intrapersonal intelligence comprises the
capacity to understand oneself, to have an effective working model of oneself
together with one’s desires, fears, and capabilities and to use the information
efficiently in regulating one’s own life”. Emotional Intelligence has been
existing in literature for a comparatively long time (Leuner, 1966) though it
was not till late that the concept was presented in a form that bore a
resemblance to one of its current manifestations (Payne, 1985; Salovey &
Mayer, 1990).

Innumerable approaches and theoretical models have been established for

Emotional Intelligence. The Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology outlines that
there are currently three major conceptual models on Emotional intelligence.

1). The Salovey-Mayer Model (Mayer & Salovey, 1997) defines this
construct as the ability to perceive, understand, manage and use emotions to
facilitate thinking, measured by an ability-based measure (Mayer et.al., 2002).
This approach looks at EI as ability analogous to the ability to read a map.

In the first article on Emotional Intelligence, John D. Mayer and Peter Salovey
(1930), defined emotional intelligence as ‘the ability to monitor one’s own and
others’ feelings and emotions, to distinguish among them, and to use this
information to monitor one’s thinking and actions’. The authors debated that
emotional intelligence consisted of four separate elements (The Mayer-
Salovey Ability Model):

 Emotional perception/identification: the ability to perceive emotions in

oneself and others, as well as in objects, art and events.
 Emotional facilitation of thought: the ability to generate, use and feel an
emotion to communicate feelings, or employ them in thinking or
creating.
 Emotional understanding: the ability to understand emotional
information, how emotions combine and progress, and to reason about
such emotional meanings.

17
  Emotional management: the ability to regulate emotions in oneself and
others to promote personal understanding and growth.

The model discusses about understanding emotions, knowledge of

emotions; emotional vocabulary; and how they blend to create other
emotions which change overtime. Managing emotions involves the ability
to manage your own emotions and those of people around you (Mayer &
Salovey, 2003).

2). Ruven Bar-On model (1997) describes emotional intelligence as a cross-

section of interrelated emotional and social proficiencies, skills and facilitators
that impact intelligent behaviour. According to this model, emotional-social
intelligence is a vision of related emotional and social proficiencies, skills and
facilitators that define how efficiently we comprehend and express ourselves,
understand others and communicate with them, and survive with everyday
demands.

The emotional and social competencies, skills and facilitators referred to in

this conceptualization include the five key components and are described as
an array of non-cognitive skills namely:

 The ability to recognize, understand and express emotions and

feelings;
 The ability to understand how others feel and relate to them;
 The ability to manage and control emotions;
 The ability to manage change, adapt and solve problems of a personal
and interpersonal nature; and
 The ability to generate positive affect and be self-motivated

This model talks about intra-personal and inter-personal ability. Intrapersonal

ability includes being aware of oneself, to understand one’s strengths and
weaknesses, to express one’s feelings and thoughts non-destructively.
Interpersonal ability includes being aware of others’ emotions, feelings and
needs, to establish and maintain cooperative, constructive and mutually
satisfying relationships.

18
3). Goleman Model (1998) views this construct as a wide array of
competencies and skills that drive managerial performance. Goleman defined
creativity that covered traits, values, personality, motivation, and character.
Under this model, Emotional Intelligence is defined by competencies, which
may be developed through training. Goleman's emotional intelligence is
known as a mixed-model as it captures a diverse array of psychological
phenomena. Goleman's work claims that emotional intelligence has a higher
predictive validity for performance in the workplace than traditional measures
of intelligence. It is measured by Multi-rater Assessment Scale (Boyatzis et.al.
2004). Emotional intelligence constructs can be differentiated based on the
method of measurement used to operationalize them (self-report, as in
personality questionnaires, or maximum performance, as in IQ tests (Petrides
& Furnham, 2000, 2001). Trait EI (or trait emotional self-efficacy) concerns
emotion-related self-perceptions measured via self-report, whilst ability EI (or
cognitive-emotional ability) concerns emotion-related cognitive abilities that
ought to be measured via maximum performance tests.

Trait Emotional Intelligence is defined as an individual’s awareness,

experiences, and tendencies regarding their abilities to perceive, express,
understand, and regulate emotions with to encourage personal well-being and
adaptability (Petrides, 2010; Petrides et al., 2016). Trait EI refers to a
composite of the emotional aspect of personality, which is operationalized
using self-report questionnaires (Petrides et al., 2007; Petrides, 2011;
Petrides et al., 2016). This conception of EI enables one to reasonably link the
construct to established personality theories (e.g., the five-factor theory of
personality; McCrae & Costa, 1999) and existing scientific models of
differential psychology.

Research in current years has confirmed that emotional intelligence (EI) is

substantial in foreseeing numerous real-life results, for instance, occupational
and academic accomplishments and quality of interpersonal relationships, in a
distinguished way than intelligence or personality (Lam & Kirby, 2002;
Petrides, Frederickson, & Furnham, 2004; Petrides, PérezGonzález, &
Furnham, 2007). More specifically, quite a few research findings specify that
trait EI predicts happiness and relevant dimensions, such as life satisfaction,

19
positive affect, and depression-proneness, above other personality traits
(Petrides & Furnham, 2003; Chamorro-Premuzic, Furnham, & Lewis, 2007).

Thus, Emotional intelligence is considered as a general structure that could

be the cause of the success of persons in various aspects of life as it helps in
constructing the individual’s personality to be more prosperous and pleasant
(Al-Hadidi, 2013). Those who use their emotional intelligence and are more
adaptable to their surroundings display high self-esteem and awareness of
their ability. The direct relationship between emotional intelligence and healthy
life designates that giving attention to emotions, being aware of and staying
aware of them, and using them to guide behaviour is very important (Adigwe,
2015). As emotional and social skills are learned in relation to others and
many of these skills require auditory power, the hearing impaired is barred
from the gain of such experiences due to the auditory impairments.

Marschark (1997) pointed to several emotional characteristics that distinguish

the hearing impaired from normal hearing individuals as:

 Show a high degree of egocentrism.

 Misunderstand others’ behaviours so they become aggressive.
 Ignore others’ feelings.
 Suffer from emotional stability.
 Negativity and lack of desire and interest in life.

The manifestation and understanding of emotions are chief factors in daily

communication (Frijda, 1986). According to Schutte et al. (2002), individuals
with higher EI use their capability to comprehend and regulate emotions to
battle situational problems. Supposedly, these individuals should be better
able to retain a positive mood when appropriate, and effectively repair a
distressed mood when confronted with negative events. Socially insufficient
communication or impoverished understanding of other people’s emotions
can certainly create interpersonal misinterpretations. Some authors
(Montanini Manfredi, 1993; van Eldik, 1994; Vostanis, Hayes, Du Feu, &
Warren, 1997) claim to identify a comparatively large amount of distrust,
stubbornness, and other behavioural complications in hearing-impaired
adolescents. Hearing-impaired children alleged difficulties with the expression
20
(Odom, Blanton, & Laukhuf, 1973) and understanding of emotions may have
been instrumental to this phenomenon. As far as the understanding of
emotions is concerned, it is suggested that their problems might be quite
fundamental: deaf children suffer from a delayed or impaired theory of mind
(Peterson & Siegel, 1995, 1998). A functional theory of mind (ToM) suggests
that children acknowledge (1) that individuals make their subjective mental
representation of the objective reality, (2) that these illustrations depend on
individual’s own set of beliefs and desires, and (3) that individual’s actions and
their emotional reactions to what happens to them are to be understood in
terms of, or predicted from, these subjective beliefs and desires.

According to (Espmark, Rosenhall, Erlandsson & Steen B; 2002) the most

important needs for the hearing-impaired is to enhance their capability of
engaging with the larger community, sensitive to their own emotional and
psychological needs and awareness of the effects of their actions to the
community. In general, hearing-impaired students are different from normal
students in terms of communication with others and this may influence their
emotions. Helvik, Jacobson, & Hallberg (2006) claimed that the emotional and
psychological issues among hearing impaired in the education area were
given a lesser amount of attention and are less studied.

One particular area of challenge for hearing impaired children is the ability to
socialize because they face difficulty in communicating with the right
emotions. Hearing-impaired children have complications in acknowledging
that different people can have different mental states concerning similar
circumstances (Peterson & Siegal, 2000). The consequences of these
difficulties can be concluded from their complications in relationships with
peers.

An important characteristic of regulating relationships with others is the use of

emotions. It has been witnessed that in the progression of development,
children acquire to display their emotions dependent upon the social
circumstances and in concurrence with the cultural norms (Malatesta &
Haviland, 1982). Hearing-impaired children have been found to disguise their

21
emotions predominantly anger and happiness, less often than normal-hearing
children (Hosie et al., 2000).

Moreover, Hosie and colleagues (2000) found that hearing-impaired children’s

reasons for masking their true feelings were comparatively less protective and
they gave more reasons that were pro-social or concerned with norm
maintenance. Rieffe & Terwogt (2006) observed that in conflict conditions,
hearing impaired children used anger as an expression more openly towards
peers than hearing children, and their results put forward that emotional
training with families and the school program appear vital for developing the
socio-emotional competence of hearing-impaired children. Gray, Hosie,
Russel & Ormel (2001) and Dyck, Farrugia, Shochet & Holmes-Brown (2004)
studied participants identifying universal facial expression of emotions from a
wide range of continuum of hearing-impaired children and witnessed a lower
performance of hearing-impaired children in identifying and classifying
emotions compared to their hearing peers.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND HAPPINESS

The theory of EI posits that people differ in their capacity to recognize,

process, and manage their own and others’ emotions, and to utilize this
information to promote well-being and adaptation (Salovey & Mayer, 1990;
Mayer & Salovey, 1997; Zeidner, Matthews, & Roberts, 2003; Mayer,
Salovey, & Caruso, 2008; Petrides et al., 2016). Emotionally intelligent people
are better able to perceive their feelings and emotions. They are sufficiently
sensitive and open to various emotional experiences of the self and, if
necessary, can access these to take advantage of the information they
contain (Salovey & Mayer, 1990; Mayer & Salovey, 1997; Peña-Sarrionandia
et al., 2015). This positive attribute allows them to carry out optimal and
efficient management of emotions (Salovey & Mayer, 1990; Peña-
Sarrionandia et al., 2015; Szczygieł & Mikolajczak, 2017). In the face of
stressors and other emotional interference, they tend to utilize adaptive
emotion coping, such as appraising the situation as a challenge instead of a
threat (Mikolajczak & Luminet, 2008), determined to maintain self-efficacy
(Schutte et al., 2002), and connecting added positive coping methods

22
(Saklofske, Austin, Galloway, & Davidson, 2007) at the earliest possible stage
of the trajectory of emotion regulation (Salovey et al.,2000; Zeidner et al.,
2012; PeñaSarrionandia et al., 2015). Owing to the sophisticated strategy of
emotion management, emotionally intelligent individuals are more likely to
experience positive emotions and less likely to be mired in negative emotions.
Since such positive emotionality contributes to broadening people’s
momentary thought-action repertoires and facilitating the construction of
permanent personal resources against stress and adversity (Broaden and
Build Theory; Fredrickson, 2009, 2013), these individuals tend to achieve a
greater sense of well-being (Salovey & Mayer, 1990; Zeidner et al., 2012). It
is, however, important to realize that emotionally intelligent people do not
regulate emotions merely to gain immediate affective comfort. On the
contrary, they do so for the sake of their real objectives and personal growth
(e.g., undertaking an emotionally demanding work task for career
development), with a good understanding of its transient consequences
(Salovey & Mayer, 1990; Mayer & Salovey, 1997). If emotional regulation
(ability to exert control over one's own emotional state) is a requirement in the
process, they may even attempt to up-regulate their negative emotions or
down-regulate their positive emotions (Peña-Sarrionandia et al., 2015).

An increasing number of studies demonstrate that trait EI is essential for

various aspects of healthy adaptation, ranging from affective functioning to
social relations (Petrides, 2011; Petrides et al., 2016). One of the concerns
that have significantly attracted researchers in recent years is the role of trait
EI in determining persons' subjective well-being which denotes how people
experience the quality of their lives (Diener, Oishi, & Lucas, 2003). It is
claimed that the skill to observe, express, recognize and manage emotions
plays an essential role in stimulating subjective well-being and happiness
(Zeidner, Matthews, & Roberts, 2012). Indeed, recent meta-analyses validate
that people higher on trait emotional intelligence report higher well-being and
happiness than their counterparts low in trait emotional intelligence (Andrei,
Siegling, Aloe, Baldaro, & Petrides, 2016; Sánchez-Álvarez, Extremera, &
Fernández-Berrocal, 2016). Moreover, a substantial body of research
provides evidence for the incremental validity of trait EI in predicting

23
subjective well-being, beyond demographics and the Big Five personality
traits, indicating the unique contribution of trait EI in explaining people's
experience of the quality of life (Petrides, Pérez-González, & Furnham, 2007;
Andrei et al., 2016; Gardner & Qualter, 2010). Nevertheless, although
considerable research has been devoted to providing evidence for the
relationship between trait EI and subjective well-being, rather less attention
has been paid to the mechanisms or processes underlying this relationship.
Some authors have previously shown that the trait EI–SWB association is
mediated by affective progressions. Specifically, results show that EI fosters
the occurrence of positive emotions and decreases the frequency of negative
emotions, which in turn lead to a higher sense of SWB (Sánchez-Álvarez et
al., 2016).

It is evident that happiness is an emotional-cognitive construct; therefore,

emotional may be one of the factors that create happiness (Agbaria, Ronen, &
Hamama, 2012; Huang, & Humphreys; 2012). According to the model of
Mayer et al. (Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso; 2004), emotional intelligence was
defined as a kind of social intelligence, which includes the ability to monitor
one’s emotions and others’ emotions, manipulating the information for
managing one’s thoughts and actions, regulating emotion in self and others,
and utilizing suitable emotions to actively and effectively solve daily difficulties
and obstacles (Abdollahi et al; 2015). Attention to emotions refers to an
individual’s tendency to notice and ponder on his/her feelings and emotions.

Bar On (1997) claims that emotional intelligence is a determinant factor to

achieve success in life, having a direct impact on general well-being and
emotional health. The components of the perceived emotional intelligence
predict aspects related to personal well-being (more vital satisfaction and
subjective felicity) and confirm a positive correlation between vital satisfaction
and subjective happiness. Thus, positive emotions are vital in the adaptation
of stress and adversity.

Law, Wong, & Song (2004) suggest that emotional intelligence consists of a
set of abilities that a person uses to understand, regulate, and make use of
his or her emotions. Emotional understanding, regulation, and utilization

24
exhibit the capability of a person to be able to manage his or her emotions.
Some people have higher competence than others to do so. Wong & Law
(2002) showed empirically that the dimensions of emotional intelligence were
moderately correlating among them. Intrapersonal emotional recognition and
management benefit an individual to deal with his or her emotions. A person
with high emotional intelligence should be able to identify his or her emotions,
to regulate those emotions, and to use them to facilitate performance. As a
consequence, this will enhance his happiness level.

According to the Mental Ability Model coined by Mayer et al. (2004),

individuals with better emotional intelligence stated improved emotional
regulation and low levels of stress and experienced higher levels of happiness
(Zeidner & Olnick-Shemesh; 2010). Moreover, people with higher emotional
intelligence have benefits in terms of superior social competence and better
social networks; rewards that develop a sense of happiness.

Previous studies stated that emotional intelligence is positively associated

with life satisfaction and better social relationship while it has negative
associations of loneliness (Schutte et al. 1998; Ciarrochi et al. 2000; Dawda
and Hart 2000; Ciarrochi et al. 2001; Palmer et al. 2002; Saklofske et al.
2003; Berrios et al. 2006). One important finding of this study is that
somebody can improve his happiness provided that the person wants to make
an effort (Lyubomirsky, 2008). This viewpoint makes it essential training
emotional competences, through activities in the teaching-learning
progression, to increases happiness. Emotional intelligence components,
such as the understanding and regulation of one´s own emotions and of the
emotions of the other person and therefore to set up a worthy emotional
connection, support to establish adjacent and satisfactory acquaintances
which all go well with happiness. Likewise, in an Indian study, Bhullar et al.
(2013) identified that the contribution in satisfying activities endorses well-
being in the individual.

It is a confirmed fact that the emotional competences of the student are

predicted in his emotional intelligence and in the level of his psychological

25
well-being, so the learning in emotional skills and competences during his
school years is of vital importance (Recondo et al. 2011).

Calderon and Greenberg (2003) identified that the emotional appraisal of

hearing-impaired were influenced by their distinctive developmental paths.
They experience more socio-emotional risks compared to their hearing peers.
Also, various studies have identified that there was a positive and significant
relationship between emotional intelligence and behavioural concerns
(MohdYasin, Bari & Salubin, 2012; Flouri, Mavroveli & Panourgia, 2013).
These dynamics affect the ability of an individual to deal with the
environmental pressures and demands (Mayer, Salovey & Caruso, 2004).
Also, hearing-impaired adolescents do not develop similarly as compared to
normal hearing peers because of their communicative and psychological
barriers. Mitchell and Quittner (1996), Peterson and Slaughter (2006), and
Rieffe (2011) stipulate that emotional intelligence and emotion regulation
research are less investigated in the hearing-impaired population.

The literature on development in hearing-impaired children delivers thorough

theoretical and empirical support for the prominence of parents’ involvement
in their children's emotional and cognitive development (Sameroff, 2009;
Sroufe, 1995). In typically developing children, studies suggest that maternal
input, specifically the number of mental state references in their conversations
with their child, predicts the child's later emotion understanding (De Rosnay,
Pons, Harris, & Morrell, 2004; Taumoepeau & Ruffman, 2006, 2008). As per
research, in the conversations, mothers also characteristically regulate their
mental state talk corresponding to their child's development, introducing more
complication as the child matures (Taumoepeau & Ruffman, 2006). These
interpretations fit well with the concept of the zone of proximal development
(ZPD), which is a term coined by Vygotsky (1962) and further adopted by
Valsiner (1997). The ZPD is described as the gap between the child's level of
knowledge and the level that the child can understand with support from an
adult. By regulating the difficulty of communication to fit the child's ZPD, the
adult supports the child's development. To modify their level of conversation,
parents rest on their appraisal of their child's developmental level. Thus,
parents who are more aware of their child's level of understanding may be

26
more likely to adjust their contributions to fit the child's ZPD. Accordingly,
children with parents who accurately estimate their child's level of emotion
understanding advance more in their emotion understanding than children
with less accurate parents (Kårstad et al., 2015).

CREATIVITY

“Creative children are assets to society. Development and progress in various

fields of national life depend on creative children. Creativity is not restricted to
the chosen few. All children are creative and its dimensions vary from child to
child”.
-Ali Imam.

Creativity is a term derived from the word ‘create’ which means to find out and
set something strange and at once useful to bring about a change in society.
The researchers have tried to experiment with life from various angles with
expectations to understand it better in terms of imagination, thinking, insight,
intuition, and spirit which are called or considered to be significant factors of
creativity. . The phenomenon of creativity is the most significant criterion in
psychology as well as education. Though the word ‘CREATIVITY’ sounds
abstract its contribution to improving individual's health, happiness, and social
situations is perhaps beyond limits.

Creativity is perceived as a trait to certain individuals and may be a key factor

that drives our human race towards success (Bately & Furnham, 2006).
People found to be vastly creative have made notable contributions
throughout history. Eminent creative personalities, such as Picasso, da Vinci,
and Einstein, have made long-lasting contributions to culture and society
(Hennessey & Amabile, 2010). Creativity allows an individual to put down
his/her thoughts and experiences in a constructive manner. A person high on
creativity might, at the same time, find an inspiration in the pain of negative
emotions, comfort in writing about these experiences, and excitement in the
process of creation (Averill & Thomas-Knowles, 1991).

According to Torrance (1988) “Creativity is a process of becoming sensitive to

problems, deficiencies, gaps in knowledge, missing elements, disharmonies,

27
and so on; recognizing the difficult, searching for solutions, making guesses,
or formulating hypothesis and possibly altering them and retesting them; and
finally communicating the results”. Torrance developed the specific view that
creativity was something quantifiable that resulted from creative performance,
in other words, creativity was defined as a product (1962; Torrance, et al.
2008). Torrance’s view of creativity in terms of a product allowed for the
development of explicit tasks and activities that were more easily quantifiable
for assessment and that could also be further simply standardized for all age
groups. These tasks and activities combined were further developed into what
is now commonly known as the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) in
1966.

Torrance’s creativity model takes into consideration three main factors to

determine creative behaviour: creative abilities, creative skills, and creative
motivations. A high level of creative achievement can be reached only from
those who have creative motivations, such as some type of commitment, and
the skills necessary to allow for creative abilities. Individuals who have a high
level of creative abilities and skills may turn into creative achievers if the
creative motivations can be enhanced. Also, people who have creative
abilities and motivations can become achievers if they have the required
creative skills (Torrance & Safter, 1999).

As hearing-impaired children are handicapped in language acquisition and

subsequently in abstract thinking and perceptions, one might assume that
they may channel their energies into the development and expression of
concrete activities and perception. Researchers, equating "conceptual"
thinking with an overall capacity to categorize, have found that deaf children
are just as capable of categorizing perceptual, concrete material as hearing
peers of the same age and IQ but less able to categorize "verbally" (Kohl,
1967). Myklebust (1964) proposed that the cognition of deaf and hearing
people was different in some important aspects. Lacking access to sounds,
deaf individuals exist in a more isolated world than their hearing peers. The
hearing individual is exposed to simultaneous experiences of vision and
hearing. For instance, many hearing children may concentrate on their actions
and their effects on the surrounding environment, and they are open to

28
intrusions from the sounds of others. On the other hand, deaf individuals are
excluded from such sounds and live in a world necessarily more centred on
the self and the effects of their activities. Myklebust concluded that the
cognitive ability of deaf individuals is, therefore, more concrete and less
abstract than that of hearing people.

The importance of compensation for adolescents with developmental

disabilities was also addressed specifically by Vygotsky (Rieber & Carton,
1993) in his study of “defectology,” the Russian term in the 1920s for the
study of disabilities. Vygotsky maintained that children with developmental
disabilities adopt compensation processes along a “roundabout path” that is,
they adapt to developmental challenges by constructing different approaches
or developing different goals. In this way, the individual with a disability
“transforms the minus of the handicap into the plus of compensation”. Youth
vary in the range of compensatory strategies that have been available to
them, based only partially on the nature and severity of their disability.
According to Vygotsky, the reserve of compensatory forces is less a property
of the child’s motivation or personality and more a product of the “social-
collective life of the child”. Thus, the opportunities provided to those with
disabilities are related to the type of compensatory behaviours and strategies
that can be employed. From this perspective, the availability of opportunities
for the adolescent with developmental disabilities to enhance appropriate
compensatory strategies is central to optimal development.

Although the hearing impaired are markedly lagging in scholastic

development, one might assume that they may perform equally or better in
nonverbal measures of creativity. The deaf have a special concern for
observed data which might aid them in their performance, for example, on the
figural form of the Torrance Creative Tests, particularly in the dimension of
elaboration. Goetzinger, et al. (1966) reported that the responses of the deaf
to a Structured Objective Rorschach were unique and that they exhibited a
high degree of nonconformity. Their lack of communication prohibits normal
socialization processes and adherence to group norms and expectations,
consequently, the deaf may be more independent in thought and actions in

29
some areas. A manifestation of such characteristics might be revealed on
certain tests of creativity.

Because of language acquisition difficulties, Heider & Kohl (1967) found

hearing impaired children from 11 to 17 year used more fixed forms of
language, avoiding elliptical forms and preferring simple fixed expressions
and concrete actualities. In another study, Nass & Kohl (1967) found the
hearing impaired are more concerned with the concrete outcome of actions
rather than the motives or intentions involved. It was concluded that hearing
impaired are more oriented toward the concrete. They were not interested in
the abstract figures and did not perform well. It is of interest to note a study of
the Structured Objective Rorschach administered to 24 hearing impaired
students and a comparable group of hearing adolescent students randomly
selected from junior and senior high school classes. Goetzinger, et al. (1966)
found that the responses from the hearing impaired were "unique" and "rare"
and exhibited a higher degree of nonconformity. Nass & Kohl (1967) found
that hearing impaired are more concerned with peers than authority figures,
exemplifying the bond of deafness that usually separates them from adult
authorities. Besides, adult teachers usually have normal hearing. Such
nonconformity, uniqueness of responses and independence from authority
may help explain the ability of hearing impaired to think creatively, especially
to elaborate. Torrance (1966) categorized high elaborators by their anxiety
over not being able to come across what they perceive as high expectations
of themselves by others. Indeed, the hearing impaired has a difficult time
meeting the expectations of others.

Teresa Amabile’s (1996) model of influences on individual creativity adds the

concepts of positive and negative goals to them, as well as adding positive
and negative creative outputs as potential results of the creative process. The
componential theory of creativity is acknowledged as one of the chief theories
of creativity in individuals and serves as a partial basis for numerous other
theories and for various empirical investigations. It was first formulated by
Teresa Amabile in 1983 and has gone through substantial evolution since
then. In conclusion, the theory is a complete model of the social and
psychological constituents essential for an individual to yield creative work.

30
The theory identifies that creativity necessitates a combination of four
components: Creativity should be utmost when a) an intrinsically motivated
individual with b) great domain proficiency and c) high skill in creative thinking
d) works in an environment that supports creativity. Goals have been strongly
and consistently shown to relate to both the levels of motivation that
individuals experience and the purposes (i.e., productive outcomes) toward
which motivation will be directed (Mento, Steele, & Karren, 1987; Rawsthorne
& Elliot, 1999).

COMPONENTIAL MODEL OF CREATIVITY (Amabile, 1996)

When in a study by Westby and Dawson (1995) the teachers were given
adjectives describing characters more demonstrative of what creative children
are certainly like (e.g., risk-taking, curious), they alleged that they were not
fond of such children (Aljughaiman & Mowrer Reynolds, 2005).

Similar findings have been reported consistently in several different countries

and regions, including Africa, Australia, Eastern and Western Europe, the
Middle East, and North America (Torrance, 1963; Stone, 1980; Howieson,
1984; Obuche, 1986; Westby & Dawson, 1995; Dawson et al., 1999; Scott,
1999; Ng & Smith, 2004; Brandau et al., 2007; Karwowski, 2007).

31
This is also factual from the perspective of Eastern cultures. Teachers and
parents in India stated favourable views of creativity but also connected
several words related to mental concerns (“emotional,” “impulsive”) with
creativity (Runco & Johnson, 2002). Tan (2003) found that student teachers in
Singapore preferred students who had pleasant personalities (such as being
kind or friendly) to students who were more creative and thrill-seeking. Chan
and Chan (1999) found that Chinese teachers connected student creativity
with socially undesirable traits; they claimed that in Chinese culture,
nonconforming or expressive behaviour can be inferred as conceited or
disobedient. Creativity also involves dissatisfaction with what already exists.
Miller (1992) referred to Einstein’s description of how his recognition that
existing theories of thermodynamics were inadequate motivated him to
develop the special theory of relativity and then the general theory. Einstein
continued to be displeased with his theory and operated on it greatly
throughout his life. Thomas Alva Edison, America’s renowned inventor was
never contented with his inventions and, over the years, took out over a
hundred exclusive rights on the electric light bulb only. Mumford and Moertl
(2003) defined two case studies of innovation in social systems (management
practice and student selection for university admission) and determined that
both innovations were driven by “intense dissatisfaction”. Therefore, seeing
that something is incorrect with prevailing knowledge and being reluctant to
accept the situation are central traits of a creative individual. It appears to be a
steady set of individual characteristics that are associated with creativity. A lot
of these characteristics are extremely positive, for example; independence,
ego power, tolerance of uncertainty, and openness to experiences.

Conversely, there is also the dark side of creativity. Characteristics related to

creativity also comprise a dearth of concern for social norms and antisocial
approaches, as well as psychopathologic inclinations (Andreasen, 1987;
Jamison, 1993). For example, manic-depressive instabilities (mood variations
fluctuating from depression to amplified excitement) are six times more
shared in creative people when compared to the general public. Certainly,
Schuldberg (2000–2001) determined that creativity is interconnected with
various subclinical formations of personal adjustment (i.e., outlines of

32
characteristics that in distinct degrees are actively pathologic but not at
reasonable levels).

Dellas and Gaier (1970) showed that the personalities of creative young
people are similar to those of creative adults, and this is supported by studies
focusing on children. Such studies have revealed that creative children are
suggestively more introverted, more self-willed, less contented, and less
controlled than children who exhibit inferior levels of creativity. Further, they
are not as willing to conform and less concerned about making a decent
impression in social settings.

Theoretical Perspective

It is traditional when discussing creativity to talk about Guilford’s work, which

is the beginning of serious empirical study on creativity. Guilford
conceptualizes creativity in terms of mental abilities involved in creative
achievement (Sawyer, 2006). These mental abilities can be identified as
making connections, recognizing patterns, taking risks, challenging
assumptions, seeing in new ways (Barrow, 1988). All these abilities which are
indicators of creativity involve action which can probably be seen by others
whereas the action of imagination as perceived in exploring different
situations, in pretending and creating alternative worlds does not always come
into visible action but can be developed in one’s mind without disclosing it to
others.

It has been anticipated that creativity is, in part, a social process. In two
prominent creativity models (Amabile, 1988; Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin,
1993), researchers suggest that factors in the work environment, such as
supervisory support and social influences resulting from group interaction, are
significant antecedents to creativity. This additional social view of creativity is
maintained by a limited but rising collection of empirical evidence. For
instance, quite a few researchers found that creative awards tend to be
conferred on those who study under highly creative types or who have been
subjected to creative role models (Simonton, 1975, 1984; Zuckerman, 1977).
However, if creativity is truly a social process, then focusing more explicitly on
the decidedly social side of creativity should enhance our understanding of

33
what it takes to be creative in the highly interactive work environments of
which most workers are a part.

Furth (1966) adopted Piaget’s theory of human development and argued that
the cognitive ability of hearing and deaf people and their developmental
patterns are essentially similar. He proposed that babies show evidence of
mental activity and some forms of thinking before they learn to speak.
Therefore, they exhibit cognition without language. Children usually begin to
talk in the second year of life, and this comes after many months of
development during which they come to understand verbal concepts. Piaget’s
investigations revealed many situations in which children fail to understand
the meaning of what adults are saying. Children understand the world and
make sense of what adults do and say according to their developmental
levels. The nature of their understanding may be different from that of adults
because their views of the world are naturally and fundamentally different.

As viewed by Piaget and Furth, language is not the foundation for thought as
cognitive development precedes linguistic understanding, we can conclude
that the comprehension of language is based on cognition. Hence, hearing
impaired, even if they lack facility with language, can be expected to develop
the same nonverbal cognitive ability as their hearing peers (Bloom, 2001;
Brown, 1991).

One of the components of creativity as mentioned above is making

connections. According to Fisher (1990), creativity consists of the
rearrangement of knowledge to gain knowledge of the unknown things.
Creativity is about making connections not in the same way as other people
do but is the ability to make innovative connections to see things in fresh ways
(Duffy, 1998). Every time new connections are made, other possible
connections are neglected. Making a connection in the same way that most
others do, thinking in the same way, makes someone normal but not creative
(Cremin et al., 2009). The ability to make new connections might be similar to
the ability to imagine but, as Vygotsky (2004) argues, imagination is the basis
of all creative abilities. Thus, imagination goes beyond making new
connections to working at alternative possibilities and working out their

34
implications by using experience and reality but at the same time by
transforming the perception of reality itself (Harris, 2000).

Creativity and Happiness

To be creative, a person shall possess creative characteristics such as being

unconventional, being perseverant when faced with uncertainty or even
criticism (Simonton, 1999), being independent, highly devoted to work, and
being passionate about originality and flexibility (Hayes, 1989). S/he shall
attain the state of “flow” in his or her thoughts and emotions, and receive
support from his or her environments (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997).

According to Tamlin Conner (2016), a researcher at the University of Otago in

New Zealand, people who are involved in more creative activities than usual
recounted increased positive emotion and flourishing without a change in
negative emotions. However, the contrary effect did not seem to occur as he
noticed that people who experienced higher positive emotions on the first day
were not more involved in creative activities on day two, suggesting that
everyday creativity leads to more well-being rather than the other way around.

Although some evidence suggests that a positive mood can enhance

creativity (Isen, 2000), while many other studies have demonstrated that
negative affect can have a facilitative effect on creativity (Kaufmann, 2003).

The contradictory findings regarding the relationship of emotion on creativity

stem from a selection of reasons, but the critical factors seem to be the type
of task that is being utilized as the outcome of creativity and the nature of the
emotional experience. Concerning the type of creativity, in some cases,
optimal creative performance may need elaboration and analytic handling with
high detail orientation (Schwarz, 1990; Mackie & Worth, 1991). For example,
it has been found that negative mood can result in enhanced solution
frequency on creative tasks, predominantly during tasks that need precise
execution, concentration, divergent thinking, and analogical problem solving
(Jausovec, 1989; Abele, 1992; Kaufmann & Vosburg, 1997). In other cases,
ideal creative performance may require increased dependence on rapid, less

35
effortful judgment heuristic approaches that display slight systematic and
analytic processing (Isen, Daubman, & Nowicki, 1987).

The type of emotional state seems to influence creativity as well. In a recent

meta-analysis, Baas, De Dreu, and Nijstad (2008) propose that in addition to
positive and negative mood, level of activation should be examined to better
understand the relationship between mood and creativity. Precisely, they offer
evidence that activating mood states (i.e., anger, fear, happiness) as opposed
to deactivating mood states (i.e., calm, relaxed, sad, depressed) can
differentially have an impact on creative performance. In their twofold pathway
model of creativity (De Dreu et al., 2008), stimulating moods that are negative
in hedonic tone are believed to boost creative fluency and originality through
enhanced perseverance. In contrast, activating moods that are positive in
hedonic tone improve creative fluency and originality through enhanced
cognitive flexibility.

SOCIAL SKILLS

Caballo, (1986) defines Social skills as set of behaviours displayed by

individuals in an interpersonal setting where they express feelings, outlooks,
needs, attitudes efficiently for the circumstances, regarding similar behaviour
in others. They are accordingly characterized by the working of the individuals
in certain demands of a social situation. According to Del Prette & A. Del
Prette (1999), these skills are learned and also vary depending on the
developmental stages, alongside cultural and situational variables.

The development of social skills is shaped by two distinguishing factors i.e.,

the individual temperament and environment. The temperament is
constructed by the propensity that the individual has to communicate socially.
Therefore, e.g., a child born with a tendency to act in a more reserved way is
likely to involve less in actions that offer the opportunity to learn and exercise
social behaviors, which could result in a reduced amount of reinforcement
(admiration, smiles, etc.) by the people around him/her. On the contrary, a
more outgoing may be engaged in social interactions in which one has the
chance to develop his/her social behavioural engagement (Caballo, 2003).
The impact of temperament on the advancement of social skills can be

36
compensated by the environmental factor. This is for the reason that the
environment works to strengthen (or not) social behaviours, as well as
assisting the learning of novel skills by employing observation and
communications (Caballo, 2003).

Adolescence is a stage wherein social skills play an imperative role in seeing

the need for social integration and the pursuit of self-assertion and freedom. It
is thus, a stage of the life cycle where adaptations and changes in personal
and social skills need to be made. Though, infancy is often considered a
significant period for acquiring social skills (Caballo, 2003), it is recognized
that in adolescence, peers impact the development, aiding as models and
foundations of reinforcement for the social skills (Caballo, 2003). The period
of adolescence has definite characteristics, including the inclination for group
interaction, which designates the tendency that the adolescent has to
associate with peer groups. This group tendency (Knobel, 1981) is
consequent from the individual's necessity to identify with someone or
something so that they can build their own identity and be considered the
main task of adolescence (Erikson, 1972). The group tendency and the
attainment of identity are, thus, relevant facets in the experience of
adolescence, which call for social interactions, since it is from the
communication with others that the sense of identity is articulated.

Mainly, two kinds of social skills are significant for a worthy experience of
adolescence: assertiveness and self-control (Bakker, Ormel, Lindenberg,
Verhulst & Oldehinkel, 2010). Socially skilful adolescents are competent to
express their emotional state and desires, handling their impulses and modify
emotions and thoughts. Additionally, discrepancies in social skills favour
discrimination among peers and conflict with authorities. The discrimination
and conflict that results from deficits in social skills, when long-lasting, can
result in mental health concerns (Bakker et al., 2010). Individuals with worthy
social skills have a little chance of developing depression and being isolated
and socially apprehensive (Segrin & Flora, 2000). On the contrary, socially
skilled behaviours are seen as advantageous for the growth of approaches
when confronted with adverse conditions by reducing susceptibility and
improving resilience (Cecconello & Koller, 2000).

37
Adolescents and children with disabilities at times have behaviours that are
unacceptable or uncooperative in social interactions. The dearth of suitable
social behaviours may be a characteristic of their disability. Students may lack
a specific social behaviour, they may show inappropriate social behaviour in a
certain situation, or they may not be aware that a particular condition calls for
a specific behaviour (Marturana, Pereira & Manfrinato, 2006). The set of
courses for students with disabilities can be divided into areas, specifically
academic and nonacademic. In this, social skills training would be considered
nonacademic. Such skills are a vital part of the development of social
competence (Rose-Krasnor 1997, Rose-Krasnor and Denham 2009) and are
associated with better mental health (Lee et al. 2010, Wichstrøm et al. 2013).
Thus, promoting social skills development in at-risk groups is of great
significance. Conventionally, the emphasis on social skills has overshadowed
by academic skills. However, several trainers acknowledge the requirement
for a better emphasis on social skills development to encourage greater social
capabilities for students with high incidence disabilities. This can enable
individuals to interact effectively with others and maintain successful
relationships in a socially accepted manner (Gresham and Elliott 1990). Karen
Anderson’s interrelated construct of social skills shows how a child with
special needs grows the social relationships while moving through
collaboration of various factors.

CONSTRUCT OF SOCIAL SKILLS (Anderson, K. (n.d.). (Retrieved March 28,

2017, from http://successforkidswithhearingloss.com/social-skills-dhh/)

38
In this model, self-concept and theory of mind provide the essential foundation
upon which social relationships are built. Self-concept—also referred to as
self-identity—is the collection of beliefs one has about him or herself. Self-
concept is cognitive and descriptive and reflects our perceptions of our
behaviors, abilities, and unique characteristics. It answers the question, “Who
am I?” In the beginning, this view of one’s “self” is concrete and descriptive of
what the child believes about herself. Over time, self-concept changes as
children make new discoveries about who they are and what is important to
them. Children must first understand who they are before they can begin to
understand others. Over time, their interactions with others will impact them
positively and/or negatively, shaping their self-esteem as they grow. Early
skills forming the basis of ToM begin developing in infancy and early
childhood. Later, children learn to predict what someone thinks or feels, and
they begin to understand complex language that relies on ToM, such as lies,
sarcasm, and figurative language. Experience over time enhances ToM
development. Pragmatic language is the social language we use in our daily
actions with others. Self-concept, ToM, and pragmatic language are essential
components of social communication. Social communication skills are needed
to engage in conversations with others. Children must be able to start and end
conversations, focus on a specific topic, maintain attention to the topic, and
take turns. Social conversations provide information, seek answers to
questions, opportunities to negotiate, offer suggestions, and seek clarification.
Nonverbal skills are critical to aid in the understanding of social conversations,
including understanding implied meanings. When self-concept, ToM,
pragmatic language, and social communication come together, social
relationships are successfully formed.

Children with hearing impairment are at greater risk for developmental delays
and difficulties than their peers with normal hearing. This risk is frequently
ascribed to the language delays (Stevenson et al. 2010, Hoffman et al. 2015).
Also, mild bilateral (26–40 dB in the best ear) and unilateral losses (<25 dB in
the best ear, ≥25 dB in the other) might have an increased risk of maladaptive
development (Tharpe 2008, Winiger et al. 2016). Still, several outcomes in
children with mild hearing loss are unexplored, predominantly those

39
associated with social and emotional development. In general, hearing-
impaired children display lower social competence, including social skills, than
normal hearing children. Such as, Hoffman et al. (2015) stated that children
with severe to profound hearing loss had significantly lower social
competence when compared with children with normal hearing. A similar
conclusion was attained in studies of children with cochlear implants
(Wiefferink et al. 2012) and mild to profound hearing loss (Meinzen-Derr et al.
2014). On the other hand, exceptions do exist; age-appropriate social skills
have been recounted among students with mild to profound hearing loss
(Antia et al. 2011, Laugen et al. 2016) and also in children with cochlear
implants (Ketelaar et al. 2013). Thus, it is essential to investigate the subject
of social skills among hearing impaired adolescents.

Emotional Intelligence and Social Skills

Social skills are a significant part of social life which assists individuals to
interact in mutually constructive ways. Assertiveness, communication, conflict
resolution, and anger management are all part of social skills/interpersonal
Skills. Through better social skills, communication skills develop because of
the person’s better capability to use both listen and speak efficiently. Having
good social skills also results in the capability to control anger, supports the
achievement of goals and develops problem-solving skills. High emotional
intelligence is associated with significant social outcomes including
cooperation, self-management, social awareness (empathy), and relationship
management. According to Saarni (1999) emotional proficiency is a
fundamental component in social development and impacts the quality of
interpersonal relationships. Schutte et al. (2001) also maintains that
individuals with greater emotional intelligence had higher empathetic outlooks,
self-monitoring, and social skills who completed an emotional intelligence
measure and Social Skills Inventory by Riggio (1986). Thus, there is a positive
association between emotional intelligence and social skills displaying that
people with high Emotional Intelligence are more successful in social
relations.

40
Hearing is one of the most vital sensory abilities of people, devoid of which
they lose maximum of their abilities to adapt with the environment around
them. At times, it is witnessed that certain of the hearing impaired individuals
believed to be provided with the things they expect or wish to have. One of
the key reasons for this social deficiency is linked to how they have been
brought up during their childhood. At times, parents of these children did not
make it well-defined about their rights and due to their physical deficiency; the
parents adhere to all their demands. Sometimes, they even violate the rights
of other children for the benefit of their hearing impaired child, and along
these lines they have headed their child to keep on expecting more, and to go
on asking for all they desired. Consequently, in their adulthood, these children
frequently continue to anticipate too much of their own privileges. This causes
the hearing impaired children to be precluded by others, further, resulting in
difficulties for the hearing impaired. Dearth of social stimuli, particularly for the
children grown up in day and night schools or dormitories, leads them to be
more secluded.

Emotional intelligence plays an immense role in assisting the individuals

acquiring the social skills which, in turn, allow them to deal with the social
situations. This kind of proficiency comprises the capacity to suitably respond
to all emergency social situations (Mayer & Salovey, 1997). According to
Goleman (2000) emotional intelligence is more significant to the individual’s
accomplishment in life in comparison with intellectual intelligence, since it
plays a commanding role in success at work, at study, and in social life. He
further adds that adolescents with emotional intelligence are more
appreciated, liked and well-liked by their friends, and they have great social
skills, they are less aggressive, and they are more attentive in learning
circumstances. At the domestic level they are more effective in their life and at
the vocational level they boost the team work by helping the others to learn
because those students have the capability of seeing things from the others’
perspective and they encourage collaboration during carrying out the
educational tasks (Al-Elwan, 2011). Elias (1997) perceives that the success of
team work needs teaching the students the social skills, which influences their
capacities in establishing their emotions and resolving their problems quietly.

41
This helps them to face difficulties and adjust to different restraints. Also, this
benefits them to cultivate in a healthy manner and subsequently thrive at the
interpersonal and the professional levels in the future.

Creativity and Social Skills

Creativity is always a distributed process (Glăveanu, 2014). Creativity might

frequently presume as a solitary activity, but this activity constantly involves
socially fabricated meanings, intellects, and motives. Creativity always
progresses in interaction with others, with social, systematic, artistic, and
cultural glitches and based on existent resources and awareness in the
community. It does not exist in a vacuum. Creative processes are constantly
determined by direct or indirect interaction with other people. Even in cases
where the person develops creative processes in solitude, he or she always
does based on languages, knowledge, procedures and expectancies that are
socially constructed. Creative ideas and products always depend, in a certain
way, on interaction with other people and culturally constructed and
reconstructed knowledge and procedures.

In the field of creativity, the role of the others was not taken into consideration
at the beginning of methodical research. Initial studies on the creative
dimensions of have concentrated on the analysis of subjective variables
ignoring any social and relational facets. In several studies, social aspects
have been measured, but in isolation, or merely as external influences
(Hennessey & Amabile, 2010). In embracing a sociocultural viewpoint, it is of
interest to identify creativity in terms of processes of adoption and
internalization of diverse knowledge, languages and connections with others.
The social is not outside the subject; on the contrary, it constructs and
reconstructs an individual permanently.

When people produce novel ideas as part of their on-going creative act, they
do so by alternating between and assimilating perspectives and these
perspectives are essentially linked to social perceptions and practices. In
other words, the cognitive developments involved in divergent thinking are
inherently social as they both occur out of social understanding and reflect its
nature. This is well recognized in dialogism and dialogical self-theory

42
(Hermans, 2001); that intensely advocates for a social reformulation of
apparently individual, intra-psychological procedures (Glăveanu, 2015). Latest
neurological studies also highlight the significance of social interactions in
creative processes. The renowned Argentinean neuroscientist Facundo
Manes highlights the prominence of social interactions and diverse
experiences in the development of creativity “the sociocultural factor plays a
crucial role since the access to experiences of different nature reshapes the
brain connections that are necessary to generate innovative solutions”
(Manes, 2014).

Others, their contributions, ideas and productions are determinant in the

creative process and the consolidation of new perspectives and products.
Creativity is also a cultural process since histories, artifacts, languages and
procedures are built and rebuilt over time in relations between people. In the
field of creativity, it is necessary to deepen the sociocultural perspective and
study the creative experiences of people in everyday life. Qualitative studies,
narratives and participant observations are interesting tools for developing
these perspectives in the field of creativity. The inherent complexity of creative
processes challenges researchers to develop analytically inclusive frames,
without disregarding different development levels among the perspectives
(Reiter-Palmon, 2014) and rejoicing the advances and individualities of each
approach (Tanggaard, 2015).

Csikszentmihalyi and Sawyer (2014) interviewed creative individuals in

diverse fields and discovered a relevant moment in the creative process:
insights. They witnessed that as the moment of insight appears as one small
flash in a multifaceted, time-consuming, essentially social process. Insights
are also determined by interaction with others and social contexts.
Alternatively, Hooker, Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi (2014) highlighted the
importance of training experiences in modeling the potential of young
scientists, artists, scholars, and performers. In the field of exploration on
creativity, we see the need to go outside the idea of solitary understanding,
beyond studies focused on people’s inner capabilities and grow the emphasis
of analysis to interactions and collaborative creative processes.

43
In summary, it is concluded that Hearing impairment not only impacts
language development but also numerous aspects of the social, emotional,
and educational development of an adolescent. According to Bronfenbrenner
and Morris (1998), adolescents are affected by their psychological processes
and the immediate settings in which they interact, such as the family and the
school. Hearing-impaired adolescents may feel disconnected from the outside
world which can result in misunderstanding and miscommunication with the
family and peers. Further, this weakened communication with family and
peers can result in various issues in hearing impaired adolescents like low
self-esteem, identity crisis further resulting in social and behavioural problems
(English, 2002). They typically face the problem of “not fitting in” the society
as due to lack of language, not only they are unable to express their
emotions, they usually end up misunderstanding other’s emotions as well.
The ability to vocalize one’s emotions well and also understand those of
others helps in shaping healthy relationships. Thus, people who experience
frequent positive moods can presumably develop skills and relationships that
help them to succeed in a variety of domains. Emotional intelligence and
creativity can play an essential role in the lives of hearing-impaired
adolescents by enhancing their psychological health and well-being.
Happiness being a pivotal part of one’s well-being can help hearing-impaired
adolescents to deal with everyday issues in a much more efficient manner.
Similarly, social skills allow an individual to deal with relationships and have a
better understanding of other’s emotions along with one’s own emotions. The
present study will help to see the role of emotional intelligence and creativity
in predicting happiness and social skills in hearing-impaired adolescents.

JUSTIFICATION OF THE RESEARCH

Adolescence is a transitional developmental stage that commences with

puberty and ends with the acknowledgement of adulthood roles. This period
involves several biological, cognitive and psychosocial changes and during
adolescence, youth are faced with difficulties that are cognitive, relational, and
biological (Lerner et al., 1999; Williams et al., 2002; Susman & Don, 2009).
While the transition through adolescence is inevitable for sound development,
the speed and magnitude of these changes may overpower the capacity of

44
many young to cope and result in potential threats to mental and physical
health. This life phase is characterized by the engagement in mutual
interchanges, which provide the individual with a deeper understanding of the
emotions, psychological processes, and belief systems of a partner. The
biological, cognitive psychological, and social changes that characterize the
transition from the adolescent period to adulthood are as challenging for
individuals with developmental disabilities as they are for typically developing
individuals.

However, individuals with developing disabilities may step into adulthood

without the same degree of personal freedom and self-sufficiency.
Adolescents with hearing impairment confront several challenges that are not
experienced by their hearing peers and can find some aspects, such as
friendship and peer relations, particularly daunting. Children with hearing
impairment are likely to be at risk of developing emotional and behavioural
difficulties due to several factors. Their social-emotional growth may be
unpleasantly influenced by complications in communication and numerous
have added cognitive and physical deficiencies that are risk factors for the
growth. The advancement of social skills, peer associations, and academic
performance of the schoolchildren is tremendously influenced by hearing
impairment (Moeller, 2007). The extent to which students are capable to begin
and continue satisfactory relationships, advanced peer approval, begin and
conserve friendships, and dismiss negative or maligned social relationships
describes social competence and foresees satisfactory long-term emotional
and social adjustment (Gresham, Sugai, & Horner, 2001). Myklebust (1996)
observed that severely deaf people think and behave differently from hearing
people in order to make sense of world. The hearing impaired is likely to have
compromised thinking and reasoning skills and as this child enters
adolescence, he/she may experience delays in abstract thoughts and moral
reasoning.

Approximately, 90% of hearing impaired are born to hearing parents and it is

estimated that 80% of these are unable to effectively communicate with their
deaf children (Ridgeway, 1993). Without the ability to go beyond receiving
instructions and answering basic questions, hearing impaired adolescents

45
may be unable to share their experiences and emotions with their parents
(Ridgeway, 1993). With the sense of hearing missing, a child will miss many
social cues that are embedded in our observations and interactions with other
people. It is possible that because young children have not yet mastered
language, there is a limit to their ability to imitate others. They may not be able
to take in verbal information which may lead to misinterpretations or
misunderstandings. They must rely more on visual rather than auditory cues
for this information (Bandura, 1974). The expression and understanding of
emotions are an important part of everyday communication (Frijda, 1986).
Being able to express your own emotions properly and understand other’s
emotions well helps in building healthy and good relationships. Emotionally
intelligent people are considered successful individuals.

A socially inadequate expression or impoverished judgment of others

emotions can easily lead to interpersonal misunderstandings. Emotional
understanding of hearing impaired children is no different from the hearing
children in the early years of life but as they grow older, they generally have a
very limited understanding of emotional processes (Greenberg & Kusche,
1993). Emotional development obliges exposure to communications in a
phonological social context; children’s understanding of emotions expands
when they intermingle with siblings and friends (Taumoepeau & Ruffman,
2008) and talk about emotional experiences with their parents (Symons,
2004).

Theory of mind (ToM) tries to explain the delayed understanding of emotions

in deaf children as a functional theory of mind which implies that children
acknowledge (1) that people make their subjective mental representation of
objective reality; (2) that these representations depend on people’s own set of
beliefs; and (3) that people’s actions and their emotional reactions to what
happens to them are to be understood in terms of, or predicted from these
subjective beliefs and dreams. Hearing-impaired children can have good
emotional regulation if they have a supportive environment and family around
and put these emotions to use more constructively. Many theorists have
focused the use of emotions to facilitate performance. This links to the
capability of an individual to make use of his or her emotions by aiming them

46
towards productive activities and individual functioning. A person who is
exceedingly proficient in this aspect would be able to inspire him or herself to
do better endlessly. He or she would be able to direct his or her emotions in
positive and productive directions. A person with high EI would be able to
direct positive emotions to high performance and redirect negative emotions
to generate constructive performance goals. The competency model
(Goleman, 1998) suggests that individuals with high emotional intelligence
have abilities to motivate themselves, persist in the face of frustration, control
the impulse and delay gratification, regulate one’s mood and keep their
distress from swamping their ability to think, to emphasize and to hope.
Mayer, Caruso & Salovey (1997) suggest that using emotion as one basis for
thinking, and thinking with emotions themselves, may be related to important
social competencies and adaptive behaviour.

A plethora of literature concerning the education of the hearing impaired has

centered on their disability and the communication deficits imposed by it
(Gamble, 1985). In general, research in the creativity of hearing impaired
populations is still minimal. The latest modifications in early identification of
deafness and improved access to sign language in schools have given rise to
a new generation of hearing-impaired learners whose opportunities to
cultivate creativity may differ from those previously studied (Marschark &
Spencer, 2011).

Also, EI enables a person to maintain or increase positive moods and can

thus indirectly be involved in enhancing creative thinking (Isen, 1999).
Conferring to the broaden-and-build theory (Fredrickson, 2001), optimistic
emotions also expand people’s “thought-action repertoires” and permit them
to build physical, societal, academic, and emotional resources. Thus,
individuals who experience regular positive moods can presumably cultivate
skills and relationships that help them to flourish in diverse domains. A good
level of emotional regulation is possible in deaf adolescents if they have a
supportive environment and family around and put their emotions to use more
constructively. The ability to make use of his or her emotions by directing
them towards constructive activities and personal performance can contribute
to the subjective well-being of a person. Creativity in any form allows an

47
individual to express one’s thoughts and feelings without the use of words. It
can be more than useful for the deaf as it allows one to put any kind of
emotional thought into an expression. Emotional intelligence and creativity
can play an essential role in the lives of deaf people by enhancing their
psychological health and well-being. Happiness being a pivotal part of one’s
well-being can help hearing-impaired adolescents to deal with everyday
issues in a much more efficient manner. Social skills allow an individual to
deal with relationships and have a better understanding of other’s emotions.

Researchers have not tried much to look into the aspect of emotional
intelligence, creativity, and psychological well-being together. This study can
help us to understand the scenario of deaf adolescents in a better way and
can lead us to the other factors that can play a part in the happiness of these
adolescents. The research objectives of the study are as follows:

OBJECTIVES

1. To ferret out the relationship between;

a) Emotional Intelligence and Happiness of Hearing Impaired

adolescents.

b) Emotional Intelligence and Social Skills of Hearing Impaired

adolescents.

c) Creativity and Happiness of Hearing Impaired adolescents.

d) Creativity and Social Skills of Hearing Impaired adolescents.

e) Emotional Intelligence and Creativity of Hearing Impaired

adolescents.

2. To analyze the predictive value of;

a) Emotional Intelligence in Happiness and Social Skills of Hearing

Impaired adolescents.

b) Creativity in Happiness and Social Skills of Hearing Impaired

adolescents.

48
3. To see the group differences between;

a) Hearing impaired adolescents and Normal Hearing adolescents

on Emotional Intelligence.

b) Hearing impaired adolescents and Normal Hearing adolescents

on Creativity.

c) Hearing impaired adolescents and Normal Hearing adolescents

on Happiness.

d) Hearing impaired adolescents and Normal Hearing adolescents

on Social Skills.

49