Quality of Life of deaf adolescents in high school: A systematic literature review.
Quality-of-life scores for deaf high-schoolers swing wildly depending on the survey you pick—double-check your tool before writing goals.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Madhesh (2024) hunted for every paper that measured quality of life in deaf high-school students.
Seven studies were found. All used different surveys and ideas of what ‘good life’ means.
The team compared how each study defined and scored quality of life.
What they found
The seven papers do not agree. Some say deaf teens feel great, others say they feel low.
No single tool or definition won the day. The field is split.
The review warns: pick any survey without care and you may get a false picture.
How this fits with other research
Golubović et al. (2013) saw the same mess in teens with intellectual disability. Parents and teens gave different scores, especially about health. The target paper shows the mess is bigger: even the experts can’t agree on what to ask.
Whaling et al. (2025) tried to fix the mess for younger students with IDD. They built a new tool called QoLI-PE that covers eight clear areas. Their work shows one way forward: create one shared tool instead of many one-off surveys.
Gonzalo et al. (2024) looked at the Quality of Life Supports Model in college. They found big gaps between what the model promises and what campuses really do. Together these papers paint the same picture: we talk about quality of life a lot, but we still measure it poorly at every school level.
Why it matters
If you assess a deaf teen for transition planning, do not trust one survey blindly. Compare at least two tools and add interview questions. Push your district to pick a common tool so data can be tracked across grades. Good plans start with good measures.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
There are few studies that have explored the Quality of Life (QoL) for deaf adolescents in high school (13-18 years). Following the PRISMA guidelines, this systematic literature review examined peer-reviewed research that has explored QoL for deaf adolescents in high school by using databases such as Science Citation Index, Scopus and Social Science Citation Index in addition to some related journals such as American Annals of the Deaf, the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, Ear and Hearing, and Deafness and Education International spanning 14 years (2010-2024). By analysing the titles, abstracts, and keywords and reading full manuscripts, only seven were deemed appropriate for inclusion in this systematic review. All seven studies used quantitative research. This systematic review found that there is a discrepancy between the studies included in the use of measures. The results of the studies are different and some are contradictory. The QoL concept also differed amongst the studies. This study concluded that there is a great need to conduct more research into the QoL of deaf adolescents in high school with diverse research methods and the use of qualitative or mixed research, as well as expanding the scope of studies to include more dimensions in the concept of QoL.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2024 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2024.104764