Daughter with hearing loss through her father's eyes: Life story

The aim of the study is to examine the life story of a father with normal hearing who has an adult child with hearing loss and to thoroughly understand the effects of the father on the life and developmental periods of his child with hearing loss. The participant of the study, which was designed with a life history of qualitative research methods, is a father of an adult child with congenital sensorineural hearing loss. Research data were collected through semi-structured interviews, documents, photographs and projective researcher diaries. The collected data were analyzed with the inductive method. The findings were interpreted within the framework of nine main themes: The family in which the father grew up, the mother's pregnancy period, diagnosis period, pre-school period, primary school period, secondary school and high school period, adulthood, e-Kpss/business life and difficulties encountered after cochlear implant surgery. Findings of the research; showed that the family in which the participant father grew up had an impact on his perceptions of paternity. father accepted his daughter's hearing loss more easily, this behavior of the father increased his bond with his child with hearing loss, and caused the father to have the main say over the child's developmental stages and academic skills. He stated that his wish as a father is more verbal communication with children with hearing loss to be established. Although the findings of the study cannot be generalized to the entire population of fathers and children with hearing loss, it is thought that these findings will shed light on theories and future research.