Quality of life of mainstreamed hearing-impaired children - results of a study with the Inventory of Life Quality of Children and Youth (ILC)

Problem: Because in future more and more hearing-impaired children will go to school in inclusive settings, the life quality of this group constitutes a significant psychosocial indicator for participation in societal life. The Inventory of Life Quality of Children and Youth (ILC) was tested to examine its usefulness in diagnosing hearing-impaired children. Method: The ILC was filled in by 212 children. The procedure's inter-item-correlations, factorial structure and reliability were tested, and also the level of life quality compared to the procedure's standardization sample. Determined in addition were interrelations with sociodemographic variables, children's competencies and children's experienced participation at school. Results: For hearing-impaired children as well, the ILC with all its relevant statistic values proves to be a procedure for measuring life quality that provides very satisfying results comparable to those of available standardization samples. The level of life quality of the tested sample is not impaired as compared to that of with children with good hearing. As expected, there are some significant relations to other variables, such as communicative competence, intelligence, academic achievements, and participation. Conclusion: The ILC provides a valid screening procedure that can be applied in the diagnosis of hearing-impaired children to measure the psychosocial well-being of hearing-impaired children in general education classrooms, and to get evidence for timely interventions.