Ninety percent of deaf infants are born to hearing parents, and socio-emotional development is compromised in a substantial subset of these children. While deafness itself does not cause socio-emotional and behavioural dysfunction, its influence on socio-emotional development is profuse and complex. It was proposed that early problems in mother-child joint attention would explain some of the socio-emotional development that lags chronological development in deaf children with hearing mothers. Fifty six 18-to 36-month old children and their mothers were recruited to the study; n = 29 hearing mother-hearing child dyads; n =27 hearing mother-deaf child dyads. A re-conceptualized model of joint attention guided this research and joint attention was restated as a functional construct. Four questions were asked and seven hypotheses were derived from these questions. Results supported six of the seven hypotheses tested. Findings are discussed in terms of developmental relations between joint attention and early socio-emotional development in hearing and deaf children. More specifically, the findings support a developmental psychopathology perspective of development that broadens the "language" argument for problems in deaf children's social development. Overall, a deliberate, rather than intuitive, model of mothering is suggested to be important in the accommodation of hearing mother-deaf child joint attention important for early socio-emotional development. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The intent of this thesis was to study, in depth, the experiences of four adolescent mothers who underwent a home intervention program. I studied two mothers who did well with teaching their 12-month old children during play, and two mothers who did not do as well. All four mothers received weekly intervention from the time of their child's birth through 12-months of age. I studied the following variables: 1) how much time the home visitors spent on selected child development and parenting topics; 2) the mother's perceived social support; 3) how many community resources the mother used; and 4) if the infant was healthy and within normal developmental range. All of the mothers struggled in their lives, yet varied in the quality and time of most of the variables. It was striking how different each one was from the other. The implications of the study are important for child development specialists who can use the qualitative data within this document to better understand first time adolescent mothers in order to improve the outcomes of the home visitation services that they provide to mothers and infants. After spending time studying these four adolescent mothers, I would recommend that adolescent women not get pregnant. Adolescence is a time that is meant for experiences and self-discovery and should be spent free from a dependent child who critically needs them. Future research and funding should be spent on preventing adolescent pregnancy and ensuring that flexible curriculum be utilized by the home visitors in order to meet the varying needs of adolescent mothers.