Parental Expectations on Communication Abilities, Social Skills and Academic Achievements from Cochlear Implantation

We assessed parental expectations on communication abilities, social skills and academic achievements from cochlear implantation using ‘Parent Expectations Questionnaire for Cochlear Implants’. A total of 80 parents whose children were in the process of implantation served as participants. They were equally divided into two groups. Group I: Parents whose children were in the process of implantation with financial assistance from Govt. scheme; Group II: Parents whose children were in the process of implantation with self-finance. Based on the expectation scores, the expectations were categorized into four levels, i.e. almost no expectations; low expectations; medium expectations; high expectations. It was noticed that the parents of both the groups had high expectations on communication abilities, social skills and academic achievements from implantation. It was further noticed that parents whose children were in the process of implantation with self-finance had higher expectations than parents whose children were in the process of implantation with financial assistance from Govt. scheme. The parents who have not been privileged to exploit the benefits of Govt. scheme, have to contribute to the cost of implant, cost of maintenance, spares, repairs and post-operative rehabilitation. Hence, their expectations from implantation might be much higher. Hence, parental expectation from implantation therefore, needs to be considered as one of the important variable while evaluating children for implantation. The cochlear implant team needs to be aware of the dynamics involved in parental expectations and also need to figure ways to help parents come to a realistic understanding of the procedure in order to make the whole procedure effective.