Service providers’ perspectives on life skills and deaf and hard of hearing students with and without additional disabilities: transitioning to independent living

Life skills are essential for the successful transition from dependent childhood to independent adulthood. However, research has shown that there are substantial independent living concerns for many d/Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) young people, in particular those with additional disabilities. Despite these difficulties, there has been limited data collected on service providers' understanding of life skills acquisition among their service users. This exploratory study examines how professionals working with young DHH adults, aged 15 to 20, many of whom have additional disabilities, conceptualise life skills. The key objective of this study was to ascertain how life skills are understood by these professionals. A purposive sample of 17 education and social care professionals was interviewed using semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis revealed that while professionals from both the education and social care domains had an understanding of life skills, the classification of these skills was quite narrow and limited. Nonetheless, participants were able to provide much detail on deficits their service users had in many areas of life skills development.