The Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Training Program on Alexithymia in Students with Hearing Loss

The present study investigated the effectiveness of emotion regulation training on the alexithymia of students with hearing loss. The research method was quasi-experimental, with a pre-test and post-test design with a control group. The statistical population included all primary school students with hearing loss in Isfahan City in the 2022-2023 academic year. The research sample included 30 fourth- to sixth-grade students with hearing loss who were randomly selected and placed in the experimental and control groups (15 people in each group). The tool used in this study was the Toronto Alexithymia Questionnaire (TAS), and its subscales are difficulty in describing feelings, difficulty in identifying feelings, and objective thinking. Univariate and multivariate covariance analyses in SPSS-26 software analyzed the research data. The experimental group attended eight emotion regulation training sessions (2 sessions a week), while the control group did not attend these meetings. The results showed that emotion regulation training significantly affected alexithymia (p = 0/001) and subscales of difficulty in describing emotions (p = 0/001) and difficulty in identifying feelings (p = 0/017) in students with hearing loss. This research provides valuable information regarding emotion regulation training for these students. Therefore, psychologists and teachers can use emotion regulation training to improve alexithymia in children and adolescents with hearing loss.