IMPROVING THE VALIDITY OF THE PSNI IN ASSESSING THE PERFORMANCE OF DEAF PARENTS OF HEARING CHILDREN

The content validity of the Parental Strengths and Needs Inventory (PS NI) for evaluating the child-rearing performance of deaf adults was as sessed by replicating and extending an earlier cross-sectional descrip tive study. Three types of subjects-deaf parents, hearing offspring, a nd hearing grandparents-provided the research data. The interview resp onses of 15 parent-child dyads were triangulated with grandparent ques tionnaire responses to identify parental issues not tapped by the clos ed-ended PSNI format. The content validity of the PSNI in its present form was found to be inadequate for assessing the strengths and needs of deaf parents. Recommendations for modifying the PSNI for use with d eaf parents of hearing children are advanced.