This work contains four papers. The literature review looks at how hearing parents may adapt to a deaf child in the family, and considers how the literature supports a disability-stress model of maternal adaptation. Partial support is found for the model, and a revised version is suggested. The aim of the two empirical papers is to examine the relationships between psychological distress, social identity, and identity interruption in culturally and non-culturally deaf adults. Research suggests that interruption to social identity leads to increased psychological distress, and that...