Introduction: Self-advocacy skills are not something that can be acquired suddenly in adolescence. They involve various psychological factors, such as self-understanding, acceptance of disability, establishing one's identity, trust in others, and self-esteem. These psychological factors overlap with the non-cognitive skills that OECD (2021) points out as important. What specific parenting and therapeutic experiences can lead to children with disabilities acquiring self-advocacy skills?


Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore what childhood experiences influenced self-advocacy in adolescence by conducting a total of five semi-structured interviews with a hearing-impaired child who underwent cochlear implant surgery as an infant, from the age of 9 to 24, and conducting longitudinal analysis.


Method:　 The interviewee was born with severe congenital hearing impairment. He underwent cochlear implant surgery in his right ear at the age of 3 years and 6 months. Semi-structured interviews using the same questions were conducted five times in total: in the fourth and sixth grades of elementary school, the second and third grades of junior high school, and the fourth year of university.


Results:　 An example of an interview is shown below: Q: What do you think about being deaf? A (4th year university): I think I like it. I'm glad I'm not deaf. I have friends that I've been able to meet because I'm deaf. I've never hated myself for not being deaf. A big part of that is because I went to the kindergarten department of a school for the deaf. I remember the teachers at the kindergarten teaching me sign language carefully and loving me.


Conclusions:　 It was suggested that the therapeutic experience at the kindergarten, in which the teacher warmly accepted the child through sign language despite her hearing impairment, led to a positive view of himself and trust in others.