NATIONAL SURVEY OF SCHOOL COUNSELORS WORKING WITH DEAF AND HARD-OF-HEARING CHILDREN - 2 DECADES LATER

The first national survey of school counselors for deaf children was c onducted by Marie Curtis in 1975. She found that deaf students needed counseling services and that existing services were poor to fair in me eting these students' needs. The purpose of the present study was to f ollow up on Curtis's study by seeking current information on the demog raphy of school counselors as well as the present roles and skills of counselors working with deaf children, Survey respondents indicated th at they spent most of their time providing individual and group counse ling. A large majority of respondents said their communication skills with students were adequate or better. The three most frequently ident ified student problems seen were ''problems with peer relations,'' ''d ifficulty with decision making,'' and ''poor self-esteem.'' Comparison s between the present study and the Curtis study indicate that counsel or competence has improved in the intervening years. Specifically, sur vey respondents in the present study gave themselves much higher ratin gs in the areas of communication skills, training, and counseling skil ls.