Empowering Social Workers to Support Deaf/Mute Individuals across Generations: A Contemporary Psychological and Social Work Perspective

Deaf and mute individuals in India and across the globe face a multidimensional set of challenges that transcend the limitations of hearing or speech impairments alone. These challenges encompass social, educational, psychological, economic, and intersectional dimensions that vary considerably across generational cohorts. Despite significant legislative advances, including India's landmark Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPWDA) Act 2016, a persistent and critical gap remains in the effective empowerment of social workers to provide comprehensive, generation-specific, and culturally competent support to deaf and mute populations. This study explores the role of social workers in empowering deaf/mute individuals by integrating contemporary psychological principles with evidence-based social work practices. Particular emphasis is placed on understanding generational differences in coping mechanisms, access to resources, social integration pathways, and mental health outcomes. The research further investigates the transformative role played by the Indian Sign Language Research and Training Centre (ISLRTC) in standardizing and promoting Indian Sign Language (ISL) as a bridge between deaf communities and the broader hearing society. Psychological resilience emerges as a central unifying theme throughout this research. The study examines how personal traits, family dynamics, peer support systems, community networks, and professional interventions collectively shape the resilience capacities of deaf/mute individuals across generations. Special attention is directed to the factors that differentiate resilient from non-resilient adaptation trajectories, with a view to identifying leverage points for social work intervention. The research adopts a mixed-method design, combining quantitative surveys with qualitative interviews and focus group discussions. The sample encompasses social workers, deaf/mute individuals across three generational cohorts, and their family members drawn from both urban and rural settings across three Indian states. The study also critically examines the intersectionality of disability with gender, caste, religion, and socioeconomic status in the Indian context, offering perspectives that are largely absent from existing literature. The ultimate goal is to develop an evidence-based framework for training and deploying culturally competent, psychologically informed social workers who can serve as catalysts for the inclusion, resilience, and comprehensive well-being of deaf/mute individuals. The findings are expected to inform social work training curricula, disability policy formulation, ISLRTC program development, and community-based rehabilitation practice.