Major Milestone for The CODA Project at University College Cork

Major Milestone for The CODA Project at University College Cork
Thrilled to announce that Dr Noel O’Connell and Prof. Jemina Napier paper, “A qualitative literature review of how hearing codas navigate deafness stigma,” is published in the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education!

What does this article explore?
Approximately 90% to 95% of children born to Deaf parents are hearing. Despite international mandates, Codas frequently remain a “hidden minority” whose specific structural and emotional needs are ignored by family policies. This research reviews how “courtesy stigma” (stigma-by-association), public language shaming, and premature parentification impact Coda youth across familial, educational, and public spaces. Crucially, it highlights how Codas leverage their bilingual and bicultural heritage to actively build resilience and personal agency.

A Call to Action for Practitioners:
Based on our qualitative synthesis, we outline vital recommendations for:

Family Policymakers: Explicitly recognize Codas within state policy frameworks to eliminate social exclusion, particularly in Ireland and the UK.

Social Workers: Move away from pathologizing parental deafness as an automatic safeguarding risk; design services using direct Coda voices.

Public Bodies: Fulfil statutory obligations under the Irish Sign Language (ISL) Act 2017 and British Sign Language (BSL) Act 2022 to provide professional interpreters, ending the dangerous reliance on minor children as language brokers.

This research was funded by Research Ireland under the SFI-IRC Pathway programme (Grant Number: 22/PATH/A/0023

Below is a summary of the ISL video above

Part 1: Introduction & publication announcement
Hello! I’m Dr. Noel O’Connell, deaf postdoctoral researcher working at University College Cork.
My work involves doing research on hearing Children of Deaf parents (Codas).
The project explores their experiences of growing up in deaf culture and sign language and their stories about witnessing and experiencing social barriers and discrimination.
I have an announcement to make: I have published a paper together with Professor Jemina Napier, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland.
The paper is based on a literature review. What does that mean? It means we collected all the books, studies, and expert information about a topic and put them into a summary.
Our paper looked at Codas—hearing children born to Deaf parents.
Did you know that over 90% of Deaf adults have hearing children?
In our examination of the literature, we wanted to answer this question: how have Codas experienced “indirect stigma,” social barriers, discrimination and exclusion.

Part 2: What is stigma?
Stigma happens when people describe someone by a negative label. Labelling examples:
Label: a community describing someone with mental health issues as “crazy”
Label: an employer rejecting a job application because the person is deaf
Stigma can lead to rejection and exclusion

Stigma makes people feel unfairly judged and ashamed
Deafness stigma can affect deaf parents and their children including Codas.

Part 3: How stigma affect Codas
Our review found that Codas face four big challenges:
Discrimination: Codas see and hear people mock sign language or treat their parents badly.
Growing Up Too Fast: Because society lacks interpreters, children are forced to interpret complex adult meetings for their families.
Hiding Identity: They feel heavy emotional pressure and sometimes hide that their parents are Deaf to avoid bullying.
Identity Confusion: They feel stuck in the middle, struggling to find a true sense of belonging between the Deaf world and the hearing world.

This is called indirect stigma – they share the hurt and pain of the discrimination aimed at their Deaf parents.
However, we found that many Codas are resilient individuals, able to respond to life experiences of stigma
Codas use bicultural and bilingual skills to navigate the life challenges

Part 4: Recommendations
To fix these problems, our paper gives clear recommendations:
Social Workers: Stop assuming Deaf people cannot be good parents. Communicate directly with them and always book professional interpreters—never use the child.
Teachers: Actively stop bullying against Coda students, respect sign language, and book professional interpreters for school meetings.
Government: Create a legal mandate for funded ISL interpreters so children can just be children, free from adult responsibilities.

You can read our publication by clicking on the link below.

Title: “A qualitative literature review of how hearing codas navigate deafness stigma.”
Authors: Dr Noel O’Connell and Prof. Jemina Napier

The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education
Qualitative literature review of how hearing codas navigate deafness stigma

I will be in touch again soon with an update on the qualitative interviews with individual Codas. More papers to follow soon.
So long for now.