2020 Volume 66 Issue 6 Pages 222-227
Self-advocacy is considered a developmental process for disabled person to express their own needs in an assertive way, and to obtain appropriate support from others in a social context. The adequate acquisition of self-advocacy is indispensable, especially for mainstreaming children with hearing impairment. The establishment of systematic educational programs for self-advocacy is therefore an urgent task for Japanese society; however, at present, information describing the process of developing self-advocacy is not available. To asses self-advocacy among students with hearing loss, the current study examined 36 hard of hearing students (cochlear-implant, n=13; hearing-aid, n=19; and bimodal hearing-device users, n=4) using "The Self-advocacy Checklist for Japanese Students (SCJS)". The SCJS score was found to increase according to their growth ; however, only 20% of students reached an "appropriate" level when they were in the upper grades. An understanding of the current status of self-advocacy among Japanese students with hearing impairment is indispensable, especially for planning proper intervention programs aimed at enhancing self-advocacy.
