| dc.description.abstract | Introduction
This study focused on aggressive behaviours and its associates among the Deaf and Hard of Hearing
(DHH) learners at a deaf children‟s school in Kampala-Uganda. Aggressive behaviours in the DHH
are a significant mental health concern as their social-emotional development may be negatively
impacted by behavioural difficulties which in turn compromise safety and health at school.
Study objectives
The study examined the factors (individual, parent-learner interactions, and teacher-learner
interactions) associated with aggressive behaviours among the deaf or hard of hearing learners in a
deaf children‟s school in Kampala-Uganda.
Methodology
A descriptive and analytical cross-sectional study design was used. Purposive and simple random
sampling methods were used to select teachers and learners respectively. A total of 53 respondents
(45 learners and 8 teachers) participated in the study. The qualitative data was analyzed using a
narrative approach and then presented in form of text depicting participants‟ views whereas
quantitative data was entered into Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) version 25 for
analysis and then results presented in tabular forms including percentages of responses.
Results
Overall, results indicate that the DHH learners exhibit average levels of behavioral aggression (Mean
= 3.33, SD = 1.29). The study revealed that aggressive behaviour in the DHH learners significantly
differ by sex (p = 0.014) with males (22) being more aggressive than the females (13), and by age (p
= 0.002) with the 14-17 (25) being more aggressive than the 11-13 (12), and by use of hearing (p =
0.023) with more DHH learners (27) that used a hearing device exhibiting more aggressive
behaviour than those that did not use a hearing device (6). The results show that parent-learner
interactions account for 42.4% of the learners aggressive behaviours (adjusted R2 = 0.424) while the
57.6% is accounted for by other factors. Two indicators of parent-learner interactions namely; the
parents‟ involvement (β = -0.341, p = 0.004) and positive parenting (β = -0.317, p = 0.014) had a
negative effect and significant prediction on aggressive behaviours in the DHH learners. On the
other hand, poor monitoring/supervision (β = 0.511, p = 0.001) and inconsistent discipline (β =
0.652, p = 0.031) had a positive effect and significant prediction on aggressive behaviours in the
DHH learners. The results show that teacher-learner interactions account for 12.3% of the DHH
learners aggressive behaviours (adjusted R2 = 0.123). All the indicators teacher-learner interactions
had a negative effect and significant prediction on aggressive behaviours of the DHH learners‟.
More so, the views of the key informants were in support of these findings.
Conclusions
The study concludes that the DHH learners exhibit moderate levels of behavioral aggression thanks
to the work done by the teachers in promoting and developing the DHH learners‟ behaviours. The
study also concludes that aggressive behaviours in the DHH learners tend to increase with age and
differ with gender and use of hearing device. The study further concludes that levels of teacher
learner interactions are high which has a significant impact on promoting non-aggressive behaviours
of learners. The study further concludes that among the DHH children, parent-child interactions are
at moderate yet positive parenting is the most fulfilling job that can enhance child behaviours | en_US |
