Adolescents with hearing loss have been shown to have some emotional difficulties. This study investigated the effectiveness of a resilience training program on the emotional intelligence of mainstreamed adolescent students with hearing loss. In this experimental study, a pre-test, post-test, follow up and control group design was implemented. After receiving informed consents, 122 students with hearing loss in mainstreaming settings were randomly assigned to intervention and control groups (61 students in interventional group and 61 in control). The interventional group received training in groups of 3 to 5, for 6 weeks (two times per week for 75 min). The intervention focused on feelings, thinking (positive, negative) and outcomes of negative thinking, coping strategies, strengths and weakness, problem solving, communication skills, social skills, negotiation, despising and ridiculing, intra- and interpersonal skills. The Connor-Davidson resilience scale (CD-RISC) and the Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale were used to measure the resilience and the emotional intelligence (EI) of participants respectively just before intervention, as well as at the 6- and 14-week marks. The Friedman Test was used to compare changes in emotional intelligence between interventional and control groups. The intervention increased the resilience scores by 20 points. Although the EI of both groups were similar at the beginning of the research, there was a significant difference between the control and interventional groups in emotional intelligence and its aspects after intervention, at the 6-week and 14-week measurements (p < 0.001). The effect size was 1.5 for the EI total score. The 6-week resilience training program was very effective at improving emotional intelligence and could be readily used to help students with hearing loss improve their emotional abilities.
Keywords: emotional intelligence; hearing loss; intervention; resilience.