%0 Journal Article %T Surdez infantil e comportamento parental %A Rodrigues %A Ana Filipa %A Pires %A Ant¨®nio %J An¨˘lise Psicol¨®gica %D 2002 %I Scientific Electronic Library Online %X the purpose of this paper is to develop a theory about the parental behavior of parents of deaf children. the participants have been four mothers and two fathers of deaf children, aged two to thirteen years old. data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews, and analyzed by the grounded theory method. parents' main concern was how to communicate with the child and how this will be able to communicate with them and with others. these parents act continuously to solve its main concern and, in that way, to minimize the deafness and communicative difficulties of the child become central in their life. so, deaf children are over evaluated, parents normalize them and choose a total communication that includes techniques of amplification of the little hearing that the child has, learning to speak and parents gestual language learning. all of these behaviors of minimization are realized by the parents with different degrees of investment and oscillate according to some factors, like the deafness acceptance degree, the concern with the future, familiar support and third persons support. %K deaf child %K parental behavior %K grounded theory. %U http://www.scielo.gpeari.mctes.pt/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S0870-82312002000300013&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en