The purpose of this study is to understand deaf person have which experience in the marital adjustment process, and developing theory to help martial adjustment of deaf person. To achieve the objective of this research, it used grounded theory which Strauss and Corbin(1996) adduce among qualitative research.
The participant of this research is total 15 which is 6 married men and 9 married women. The average age of participant was 37.17years men, 42.9 years women. 14 out of 15 participants lost their hearing before 3 years of age, and 1 out of 15 participants lost their hearing at 12 years of age. Duration of marriage is 5 to 25 years, and the average duration is 13.4 years. The research participants have used Korean Sign Language to communicate with spouse, and with hearing parents, used written conversation and Korean vocal language for communication. Also, with children of deaf adult(CODA), they have used all Korean vocal langeage, finger sign language, sing language according to Korean grammar and Korean sign language.
The results of this study is below.
The analysis of material have studied according to the coding procedures, in open coding based on data collected from interview with participants. abstracted name to represent event, accident, situation and action. Through this process, it induced the concept of a total 154, also according this concept induced subcategory of 53 and upper category of 20. Casual condition turned out by this analysis is ‘feeling affection by perpect communication each other’, ‘raised level of self-acceptance with their sopuse’, ‘feelings of homogeneity’ with the spouse, and central phenomenon is ‘struggling to protect the love of couples like the lighthouse in the boundless ocean’
Contextual conditions was indeced as ‘communication like needle-holes and barriers of prejudice that can not be broken down'', ‘existing reality to be overcome and overcome'', ‘comrade sense of couples'', ‘living as a deaf person in the dominant hearing culture’, ‘supportive system to help marital adjustment of deaf person’, ‘lack of education and counseling opportunities for deaf couple'', ‘catastrophic crisis experience'' and ‘attitudes of the couples''. Action/interaction strategies is ‘patience'', ‘expressing negative emotions'', ‘negotiating conjugal relationship’, ‘noticing each other’s intention and thoroughly understanding’, ‘couple growing up together''. The analysis of the continuous processes of these actions/interactions showed that the ‘fantasy stage'', ‘fantasy destroy stage'', ‘chaos stage'', ‘conflict stage,’ ‘negotiate stage’, and ‘stabilize stage’.
People, who participate in ‘Fantasy stage’, had a vague hope that couple relationship will be happy. Participants of ‘fantasy destroy stage’ experienced a disappointment to spouse and realistic hardship. People in “chaos stage’ are in trouble to make the best plan between couple relationship. Participants for ‘conflict stage’ have started express inconstant emotion to spouse. People, participated in ‘negotiate stage’, have started help each other with duty and responsibility for their children. Lastly, participate in ‘stabilize stage’ began to feel comfortable after understating each other thoroughly.
Couple adjustment process of deaf person in Axial coding has been worked out ‘after devoting true heart and interdependence, separately and together enjoy happiness’.
The Central Category is showed central phenomenon to unify all categories in this study. The ‘after devoting true heart and interdependence, separately and together enjoy happiness’ is that couple take surrounding with spouse and couple, adapt to the change, and accept pain each together and truly embrace.
Marital adjustment standardized repeatedly appearing relationship about core of the category and other categories based on hypothetic standardization and relationship statement. Central properties of this type came up with ‘reliability'', ‘emotional expression'', ‘sensitivity'', ‘effort will''. ‘reliability’ is trusting spouse rather than other people and ‘emotion expression’ is expressing positive emotion and negative emotion between couple. ‘Sensitivity'' is a degree of sensitivity to the interests and problems of the spouse and ‘effort will'' is the ability to adapt to take action in couple system and environment change, it is related to accept and respect the differences of couple. In this research, ‘after devoting true heart and interdependence, separately and together enjoy happiness’ process is based on the result, their types analysed as follows: the type of ‘couple reliance’, ‘resignation’, ‘preserve keep face’, ‘effort of respect’.
Lastly, conditional/consequential matrix suggest schematically to understand the result of research and this research’s phenomenon. Through conditional/consequential matrix, it helps understand microscopic, macroscopic context which effect action/interaction of participants at individual level, family level, society level.
On the basis of research result, we have discussed concretely social, politic plan for practice to help deaf couple adaption, and have given a politic proposal. Also, it suggested a followed-up study. Through this research, it can provide to help education and counsel program as basic material for the couple adaption of deaf person.