American Annals of the Deaf

In an effort to understand the impact of their children's deafness on Greek mothers, demographic, disability-related and stress characteristics were examined with 42 hearing mothers and their deaf children. The work was based on Hill's ABCX model and Bronfenbrenner's social ecology model, entailing a microsystem, mesosystem, ecosystem, and macrosystem. In addition to child history obtained from school records, Rotter's locus of control scale, Coopersmith's self-esteem inventory and the Clarke questionnaire on resources and stress were given to mothers. Onset of deafness before 18 months of age was associated with greater maternal stress. A tendency for mothers of younger children to report more stress was evident. The mothers mainly had an external locus of control, attributing events to outside agents beyond their control. Self-esteem proved the best predictor of stress, with a low-esteem associated with greater reported stress. The findings are discussed with reference to disability-related and cultural factors.