A comparison of the amount of worry, hope and meaning of life in the mothers of deaf children, children with autism, and children with learning disability

This research was carried out to compare the amount of worry، hope and meaning of life in mothers of deaf children، children with autism، and children with learning disability. Descriptive method was used and the sample consists of 169 mothers who were selected with the use of convenient sampling method from among all of the mothers of autistic; deaf and learning disabled children aged 6 to 12 in Isfahan in 2011. The Penn state Worry Questionnaire (2006)، the Adult Dispositional Hope scale (Schneider، 1991) and the Purpose In Life questionnaire (Crumbaugh & Maholick، 1969) were used to assess the variables. The findings show that there is a significant difference in the amount of hope and meaning of life among the three groups (P<0. 01). With an increase in meaning of life in the mothers of deaf children، children with autism، and children with learning disability hope increases and worry decreases and vice versa.