While a primary task in adolescence is to individuate from the family system, the completion of this task may be complicated by specific parenting behaviors in dyads in which the child has a hearing loss. Parenting behaviors, such as encouragement of autonomy, may be unduly influenced by parents' perception of their children's competencies. An adolescent may also have increased difficulty in communicating his or her strengths to his or her parent if a shared language (e.g., sign language) is not present in the dyad. The goal of the present study was to analyze perceived levels of social competence in adolescents with a prelingual hearing loss, as well as to explore the interplay between parent promotion of autonomy and sign language competence with levels of adolescent social competence.

Findings indicated that there was not a significant relationship between parent promotion of autonomy and social competence in adolescents. A non-significant trend was found for the relationship between parent sign language competence and promotion of autonomy. Although not significant, the medium effect size suggests that, as sign language competence increased in the sample, so did levels of autonomy. These relationships were further evaluated in a model in which promotion of autonomy was assessed as potentially mediating the relationship between parent sign language competence and social competence in adolescents, after controlling for parental hearing loss and adolescent use of hearing aids. While results showed that adolescent use of hearing aids significantly contributed to parent promotion of autonomy, the overall model was not found to be significant. Further, parent promotion of autonomy and adolescent social competence did not vary by gender, and gender did not act a moderator in this relationship. Although findings are not statistically significant, the pattern of results suggests that the presence of a shared language is an important variable when assessing parenting practices and social development in a population with a hearing loss. It also indicates the need for social programs to support families in becoming competent in sign language in order to effectively communicate with a child who has a hearing loss.