Abstract:
Counselling services delivered by a professional to hearing impaired
individuals will help them solve their problems and deal with issues,
disregarding their special disability problem.This study was undertaken to
assess the counselling needs and counselling services provided for hearing
impaired students. The study examined the knowledge students have about
counselling, its services and its importance, the various counselling needs that
hearing impaired students have and the nature and relevance of the counselling
services rendered. The study was undertaken at the Cape Coast School for the
Deaf. The research design was the descriptive survey design which is a type of
qualitativeresearch design. The population of this study comprised the students
at the JHS and vocational level and the staff of the Cape Coast School for the
Deaf. A total of 103 students and 40 members of staff were sampled for the
study. The simple random was employed to select the respondents. Two types
of questionnaire were designed for students and members of staff. Descriptive
statistics such as frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviations
were used to analyse the data.The findings were that students had a fair
knowledge of counselling but not the services since, the services provided to
them lacked the appropriate skills and techniques, due to the absence of a
professional counsellor in their school. It was revealed that one of the main
tenets of counselling which is confidentiality was totally missing. The study
recommended that educational policy makers, and heads of institutions should
invest time and resources in training counsellors to help these individuals in
making informed choices and decisions to solve problems they face.
