The Turkish standardization of the Meadow-Kendall Social-Emotional Assessment Inventory for deaf and hearing-impaired students

Abstract

THE ARTICLE present results of standardization of the Meadow-Kendall Social-Emotional Assessment Inventory for Deaf and Hearing-Impaired Students (Meadow, 1983), school-age version, for use in Turkey. The SEAI is a 59-item measure for assessing socioemotional adjustment of school-age deaf and hearing impaired students. A sample of 1,097 deaf students (609 boys, 488 girls), age range 7-19 years, was rated by their teachers (275 teachers: 149 female, 126 male) using the SEAI. Data were drawn from four types of educational settings: residential, day, special class, mainstream schools. Exploratory factor analysis of the data revealed three main factors of interest, which corresponded to the hypothesized constructs in the original American standardization: Social Adjustment, Self-Image, Emotional Adjustment. The data suggest high reliability and validity of the Turkish version of the SEAI relative to the original American version. Implications of adapting the SEAI for use in Turkey are discussed.