The role of fathers in the language development of children with hearing loss: A grounded theory research

The aim of the research is to explore the role of fathers in the language development of children with hearing loss and to build a theory that explains these roles with a comprehensive conceptual framework. For this purpose, the research was designed as grounded theory. The participants were twelve fathers of children with hearing loss aged between 0-3 years. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, observations, documents, artifacts and a research journal. The data were analyzed by constant comparative analysis and constructivist grounded theory coding process. Each data of the fathers was compared with the others and a substantive theory was constructed. The substantive theory indicated that the fathers have the fatherhood role perceptions and acted according to these perceptions in the care and development of their children. Their family lives changed with the diagnosis of hearing loss, they obtained hearing technologies for their children and attended early intervention seasons. They rearranged their family lives with the experience they gained from early intervention and organized activities to support their children's language development in new interaction environments. They also made plans for their children's futures and wanted to guarantee their future lives. They were in interaction with their social circle and these interactions contributed positively to support the language development of their children. They have expectations from the society they live in and also recommendations for other families of children with hearing loss. Exploring the roles of fathers with children who have hearing loss in detail was expected to contribute to the knowledge base of literature and to practices on the field.