Development of Behavior Management Program for Mothers of Deaf Children and Studying its Effectiveness on Reduction of Mothers Stress

In the present study the behavior management program for mothers of deaf children with behavior problems has been developed. In addition, the effectiveness of this program on reduction of mothers stress has been investigated. Design of the current study was quasi experimental design-pretest-posttest with control group. The universe of population of the study was consisted of mothers of hearing impaired children with cochlear implantation who had aberrant behaviors. These children were under protection of center for cochlear implantation and rehabilitation in capital city of Tehran. Sample of study was 20 mothers of deaf children who had aberrant behaviors were selected by means of accessible sampling procedure. To gather information about children’s aberrant behaviors preschool from of Achenbach Behavior Problem Checklist was used. In addition parent stress index was used to measure parent’s stresses. Intervention protocol was developed using literature and interviews with mothers. Mothers in experimental group were assigned to treatment group of the session and each session lasted for two hours. Control group was assigned to the ongoing activities in the center. After two months follow up measures were administered to assess maintenance of the behavior change. The result of analysis with multivariate analysis and repeated measure indicated that there was a significant difference between means of experimental and control groups with respect to stress in mothers. Parent stresses were reduced as a result of intervention and the reduction maintained across time. Therefore, by taking the research aims and objectives into consideration, we can apply this training program to reduce the deaf children mother’s stress.