Abstract

This study investigated the counselling needs of students with hearing impairment in Enugu state, Nigeria. The study adopted a descriptive survey design with six research questions and three research hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance. A structured questionnaire titled `Hearing Impaired Students Counselling Needs Questionnaire` (H I S C N Q) was developed by the researcher and administered to 30 SS II students with hearing impairment (24males and 6 females) in Government Secondary School for the Deaf in Qgbete, Enugu state. The data gathered was analyzed using mean and standard deviation for research questions while t-test statistics was used to analyze the hypotheses

Major findings include the followings:

1.    Students agree to have needs in all the personal-social areas examined which include how to: relate with their classmates, accept constructive criticism from fellow students, get along with their parents, discuss freely with non-hearing friends and so on

2.     Students agree to have needs in all the educational areas examined which include how to: become university undergraduates one day, understand how to study effectively, and develop good study habits

3.   Students agree to have needs in all the vocational areas examined which include how to: become aware of different kinds of vocational skills, make choice of job according to interest, adjust desirable attitudes necessary for future profession and locate source of occupational information.

There is no significant difference between the mean scores of male and female students with hearing impairment in the personal-social, educational and vocational needs.

Based on the findings, the researcher recommended that governments and school authorities should make provisions for professional guidance counsellors in schools especially in the school under study. Particular attention should be paid to educational/vocational needs by the school and that boys and girls should be provided by the same guidance and counselling services irrespective of their sex. The implications are that the findings suggest that students with hearing impairment should be assisted to adjust to meet their personal-social and vocational needs for all round and balanced development. These can be done by providing professional guidance counsellors especially for students with hearing impairment.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Over the years, National Centre for Exceptional Children (NCEC) has made efforts towards equalizing educational opportunities for all throughout the nation. This move for equal educational opportunities is also evident in the Jomtien Conference of 1990 held in Spain (UNESCO, 2009). The conference was organised to discuss how education could be made possible with the outcome of what is today known as Education for All (EFA).

This issue of equalization of educational opportunities seems to have influenced the Nigerian government to concur with the National Policy on Education (FGN,2004),that every child shall have a right to equal educational opportunities irrespective of any real or imagined disabilities. The policy maintained that education is an instrument for national development. That means that education involves inculcation of range of beliefs which transfer and shape a person’s habits so that he can perceive problem in a wider dimension. The educational goal can be considered to have been achieved if boys and girls grow up well adjusted individuals useful to themselves and the society (Williams, 2005).

In Nigeria, the equalization of educational opportunities calls to mind the idea of general and special education. While general education comprises of special

education and a formal educational training offered within organised setting in forms of primary, post primary and tertiary education, special education on the other hand is a special education training offered in special schools to children and adults with special needs. (FGN, 2004). However, special education goes beyond providing schools and teachers with materials for the education of children with special needs, rather it means specially designed instruction that meets the special needs of exceptional students. (Hallahan & Kauffman, 2000).

Exceptional students refer to students with learning and / or behaviour problems. A child with behaviour problem is the one who deviates from age or social acceptable behaviour. (Okeke 2001). The deviation is not interfering with their personal development alone but also interferes with the lives of others. For instance, they create distraction in the classroom by making unnecessary noise, bullying each other and as well making the teacher uncomfortable to deliver teaching as he/she ought to. As a result of this, they require special education for optimal functioning, in order to contribute their quota to national development. They include students who are intellectually gifted and talented. Gifted and talented children are those children who demonstrate above average intelligence, possesses creativity, leadership qualities or ability in the performing of visual arts. They therefore require services or activities not ordinarily provided by the normal school but will require special education where provision of appropriate education

services has to be made. It also includes the physical and health disabilities. Physical and health impaired are those who have problems using their bones, muscles and joints and those with sensory impairment such as students with visual impairment and hearing impairment.

The term hearing impairment has been used to describe all cases of hearing disorders. In view of this, Abang (2005) states that hearing impairment is a generic term that connotes hearing loss that ranges from mild, moderate, severe to profound conditions. It describes a condition or state of an individual who has none or little hearing ability. According to Ugwuanyi (2009), students with hearing impairment are students who due to accident or diseases are either born with hearing loss or develop hearing loss later in life. Alukwu (2011) contends that when an individual has a hearing loss, he or she might not detect much sound.

Expressing similar view, Olawale (2000) states that hearing impaired persons are those who have lost some but not all of their hearing ability and who can or cannot benefit from the use of hearing aids in order to understand and use speech. An individual is therefore said to be hearing impaired, if the person may find it difficult in hearing any form of sound or noise which could result in partial or total deafness. This means that hearing impairment could be hard of hearing for those who may benefit from hearing aids and total deafness depending on the degree of hearing loss or the class of the hearing loss.

Hearing impairment can be classified using several criteria such as: the degree of hearing loss which is the severity of the hearing problem, whether mild, moderate severe or profound. Hearing impairment can also be classified according to the time of onset which is the time when the problem started. Hallahan & Kauffman, (2000) classified hearing impairment based on the degree of hearing loss such as mild (26-54dB), moderate (55-69dB), severe (70-89dB) and profound (90dB and above). (dB refers to decibel meaning a unit for measuring how loud a sound is). This cuts across the broad classification of deaf and hard of hearing and stresses the degree at which speech and language are affected. They also classified hearing impairment based on the time of onset as thus: congenital deafness (those who were born deaf) and adventitious deaf (those who acquire deafness at some time after birth). Other used terms as pre-lingual and post lingual deafness which points to individual language acquisition. Pre-lingual deafness refers to loss of speech occurring at birth or early in life prior to the development of speech or language while post lingual deafness occurs after the development of speech or language. In this study, therefore both categories of deafness as described above are referred to hearing impaired students.

Hearing impairment affects the effective functioning of the total personality no matter the period of onset. (Okeke, 2001). She also estimated that about one in every hundred students has some degree of hearing loss and the effect of hearing

loss is worse when the disability occurs before birth. She adds that people with hearing loss may differ in their use of language though has the same intelligence as those without hearing loss.

Some observable characteristics exhibited by persons with hearing impairment as enumerated by Okeke (2001) and Aiyeleso (2004) include: inability to respond when called from a distance, confusing verbal directions, showing no response patterns, complaining of ringing or buzzing sounds in the ear when they sit close to television or radio sets which lead them to turn the volumes so loud that it becomes uncomfortable to other people. They also complain of discharge from their ears and they misarticulate some simple words. The above characteristics as noted by Okeke (2001) and Aiyeleso (2004) create educational and emotional difficulties. There are many identified problems or effects of hearing impairment on students with hearing impairment which could be addressed through counselling. One of the prime problems of these students is inability to hear which create problems for students and makes it impossible for them to learn maximally like other hearing counterparts. However with the use of appropriate counselling techniques such as self modelling and film modelling, the affected students can be helped to acquire sign language which can further be used for counselling on their personal social, educational and vocational adjustments and personality development. This can be done by the use of counselling techniques such as self

modelling. An individual who is hearing impaired can acquire sign language by watching a counsellor communicate with sign language and thus benefit in direct- teaching for behaviour modification. In the use of this technique, both the students with hearing impairment and their school counsellor should be knowledgeable in the use of sign language. Relay or recasting of film strips on counselling sessions in which students with hearing impairment self defeating behaviour are being modified through direct teaching technique with use of sign language. By watching such films students with hearing impairment can learn how to adjust their negative behaviours to positive behaviours.

In view of the above, Lindgree (1997) asserted that persons with special needs (including students with hearing impairment) have some needs in the three major areas namely; personal- social, educational and vocational adjustments. The personal-social problems of students with hearing impairment according to Okuoyibo (2006) include emotional instability, lack of self confidence, very low self esteem, a negative self image and depression. The possible effect is that the student will lack self confidence. He will not also learn very well in the school as this will affect his understanding ability thereby creating educational as well as vocational problems. Lindgree (1997) noted that as soon as disability of any class occurs in an individual such as hearing loss, the individual becomes disappointed, unhappy and antisocial. Such conditions become a handicap in the performance of

daily activities that make the children become depressed, withdrawn or isolated thereby making them drop out of school and take to begging. As a result of this, those students with hearing impairment could have a non-cordial relationship with their teachers and peers. Eleri (1993) also added that lack of social support, non acceptance, prejudice and devaluation faced by person with hearing impairment compound also their problems in education.

In another dimension, Ademokoya (1995) noted that students with hearing impairment exhibit their own psychosocial problems in two ways. The first type is problems which all students exhibit disability notwithstanding. Such problems are absenteeism, coming to school late, leaving before time, dropping out of school, cheating in the class, difficulty in getting along with peers and teachers as well as stealing. The second type are problems which result from the child`s hearing impairment and they include hyperactivity, aggressiveness, indifference, mistrust, low self concept, low achievement and motivation.

Another area where students with hearing impairment experience series of problems is on their academic performance. Hall (2005) pointed out that students with hearing impairment face more difficulties than their hearing peers because of their need to learn sign language first before they learn other subjects. The subjects offered by these students with hearing impairment seem to be more than what is offered by their hearing counterparts. Apart from the normal subjects in the school

curriculum, they must learn how to use sign language and lip reading to enable them understand the normal subjects. This creates a huge problem to these students because learning normal subjects, sign language and lip reading at the same time will not be easy. The possible consequence is that it will lower their academic performance.

The educational problem experienced by students with hearing impairment is as a result of the inability of the teachers to utilise effective communication methods during learning activities. They find it difficult to participate in school subjects that require language. In view of this, Moores, Kluwin & Mertens (1985) noted that students with hearing impairment usually do better in mathematics than English. This is because mathematics does not require much spoken words but much of calculations. Agreeing with this, Okuoyibo (2006) stated that students with hearing impairment experience difficulty in English language because teaching and learning are done predominantly through language and English language cannot be taught and learnt well without speech. Contributing to their poor performance in English, Hall (2005) observed that as a result of inaccessible communication, students with hearing impairment receive incomplete and inaccurate language input when communicating in English and   they often leave out critical language elements needed for comprehension. The above mentioned problems may result in consistent poor performance of the students in both internal

and external examinations. A critical look at the performance of some of the students with hearing impairment from Government Secondary School for the Deaf Ogbete Enugu, in SSCE & NECO examinations 2010, 2011 and 2012 clearly indicate that they perform poorly in almost all school subjects especially those that require the use of language.

An interview with the principal of Government Secondary School for the Deaf Ogbete Enugu revealed that the students’ performance in the examination has been very poor in many subjects. None of the students had distinction (A) in English and Science subjects for the 2009/2010, 2010/2011 and 2011/2012 academic sessions. Many of them had lower credits and many failed in almost all subjects. The persistent poor academic performance of the students has been a source of worry to government, parents, educators and students as noted by Aiyeleso, (2004). Some reasons have been attributed to their poor performance. Apart from their difficulty in acquiring language, some authors such as Okuoyibo, (2006) and Hall, (2005) have attributed this to wrong choice of school subjects. School subjects are the subjects offered by the students such as English language, Mathematics, Government, Literature in English., Christian Religious Knowledge just to mention but a few. The subjects offered by any students will determine the vocational choice of such individual. Therefore appropriate choice of subjects must be made.

Some students with hearing impairment experience difficulty in making appropriate vocational choice. Olawale (1987) states that the problems of students in vocational choice include; inability to identify their aptitude, interest abilities needs and values. They are unable to find out available job opportunities in the world and are unable to pursue educational courses relevant to their occupational interest, abilities and aptitudes. They also find it difficult to match their self concept with specific occupational environment. These problems as noted by Olawale are capable of hindering their career prospects for life if they are not addressed at the secondary school level. When they cannot make appropriate career choice, it could be difficult for them to fully develop their potentials in order to contribute their own quota to nation building. However, Nwokolo and Anabogu (2006) suggested that a means by which this group of students could be helped to accept their condition and identify their positive areas of abilities is through guidance and counselling.

Guidance and counselling is concerned with assisting individual to understand oneself and the world around him. Supporting the above idea, Okeke (2003) states that guidance and counselling is designed to help students in their different problems and concerns so that they grow up well adjusted individuals capable not only of living productive lives but also prepared to contribute their quota to the development of their society. She further adds that guidance is a

process aimed at assisting individuals to discover, accept and use their abilities, aptitudes and beliefs in relative to their aspirations. Tambawal in Anyamene and Izuchi (2010) also noted that counselling is concerned with the feelings, attitudes and emotional dispositions of an individual about himself and the situation facing him.

Counselling is designed to provide an interacting relationship in which the counsellor attempts to help an individual to better himself in relation to his present and future problems. Contributing to this view, Anagbogu (2004) explained that through counselling, individuals are reassured, emotional tensions are released and thinking clarified. Anyamene & Izuchi added that during counselling process, dialogue is employed between the counsellor and the client who may lead to positive reorientation and acquisition of benefits.

Guidance and counselling services was highlighted in the National Policy on Education (FGN, 2004) which aims at providing adequate educational services for the young ones. The Policy also recognized guidance and counselling services as a reference point in the overall development of young people who are faced with numerous problems.

In Enugu state, it was observed that students with hearing impairment have not been provided with the services of counsellor. No guidance and counsellor has ever been posted to Government Secondary School for the Deaf under study since

it was established. As a result of this, the students suffer from poor personality development and adjustment as well as poor performance in SSCE due to wrong choice of subjects. In view of this, the researcher, therefore, is motivated to investigate the counselling needs of students with hearing impairment in Enugu state of Nigeria with the aim of finding lasting solutions to these problems.

Another area that has been of interest to the researcher is the influence of gender on counselling needs of students with hearing impairment. There are conflicting findings on the influence of gender on academic achievement of students with hearing impairment. For instance, some studies revealed that boys who are hearing impaired achieve better than girls who are also hearing impaired in school related subjects.(Robort, 2004). While other studies revealed that girls who are hearing impaired perform better in education than the boys who are hearing impaired.( Coerts & Mills, 1995). However, Ugwuanyi (2009) in his study on reading comprehension using American Sign Language (ASI), Total Communication (TC) and Local Sign Language (LSL) has shown that gender plays no significant role in reading achievement since all students with hearing impairment experience diminished language skills.

Another study carried out by Yuh (2002) on some Nigerian Secondary school students, found out that more male students preferred realistic, investigative and enterprising careers than female while female preferred persuasive careers.

Okonkwo (1999) in his study on some determinant factors in career choice among Nigerian Secondary school students found gender differences to be dominant factor. Boys preferred mechanical activities while girls were significantly more interested in persuasive activities. Following these inconsistencies, this research may help to resolve this controversy on the issue of gender as it influences students` counselling needs.

Statement of the Problem.

Students with hearing impairment are one of those with special needs who require needs that are peculiar to them. Due to the peculiarity of their needs, participating in socially, educationally and vocationally organized activities like others becomes difficult for them. Federal government of Nigeria recognised guidance and counselling as a tool for helping the young ones attain full development. Unfortunately, students with hearing impairment in Enugu state have not been provided with services of guidance and counselling, as a result many students suffer from poor personal social development such as: emotional instability, lack of self confidence, negative self image, depression, isolation and tends to be aggressive not because they are aggressive in nature but because they do not understand what people say and people do not understand what they say.

These students have consistent poor educational achievement such as inability to participate in school subjects that require language due to their

difficulty in acquiring language, non effective communication method for interaction, and wrong choice of school subjects which have attributed to their poor performance in both internal and external examinations.

Due to no counselling services provided for these students, they usually have poor and inappropriate vocational choice such as: inability to identify their aptitude, interest, abilities, needs and values, unable to find out available job opportunities in the world, unable to pursue educational courses relevant to their occupational interest and abilities. These hindrances tend to discourage these students from developing as others.

The researcher suspects that the discouragement may be that the students have not been provided with counselling services as they deserved which have adversely affected their education and career development. The researcher is also motivated to find out the influence of gender on counselling needs of students with hearing impairment.

In the light of the above therefore, the problem of the study put in question form is thus: What are the personal social, educational and vocational needs of both male and female students with hearing impairment in Enugu state?

Purpose of the Study

The major purpose of this study is to determine the counselling needs of students with hearing impairment in Enugu state:

Specifically, this study seeks to determine the;

1.     Personal social needs of students with hearing impairment.

2.     Educational needs of students with hearing impairment.

3.     Vocational needs of students with hearing impairment.

4.     Influence of gender on personal social needs of students with hearing impairment?

5.     Influence of gender on the educational needs of students with hearing impairment?

6   Influence of gender on vocational needs of students with hearing impairment?

Significance of the Study

The findings of the study have both theoretical and practical significance to the education sector. The theoretical significant is based on Abraham Maslow theory of need and Gregory Bateson social system theory. Abraham Maslow theory of need looks at a theory of human motivation. He extended his idea to include his observations of human`s innate curiosity. His theory parallels many other theories of human developmental psychology and also focus on describing the stages of growth in humans. Gregory Bateson social system theory is an orderly and systematic arrangement of social interactive relationship which constitute part of individual social system. Therefore, the study will help authenticate the different theories of need and social system.

The practical significance of the study will be of benefit to the Students with hearing impairment, special educators, teachers, curriculum planners, government, counsellors and parents.

This study will specifically be of importance to students with hearing impairment because it will help the students to identify their areas of needs such as personal social, educational and vocational needs and well equally help them overcome these needs. For personal-social needs; the students will achieve adjustment, in educational needs, they will be well guided in making choice of school subjects while in vocation, and they will also achieve adjustment. This is true since counselling focuses on problems and needs of people and helps them to learn what is needed to solve their problem.

It will assist the teachers and principal to encourage and teach students knowing their predicament and shortcoming. Teachers will have a better understanding of those students and they will be better equipped to manage the students. Teachers will also understand the areas students with hearing impairment require greater support based on the identified needs through seminars and workshops.

The result of this study would be useful for various government agencies and professional bodies concerned with education of students with hearing impairment among other categories of special needs. This is true as they will

understand some of those needs of the students and having known the importance of counselling will provide and make adjustment in their curriculum. This can be done by including behaviour modification programme among the school services to be offered to the hearing impaired in the school system.

The findings from the study will also add to the body of literature as far as counselling needs of students with hearing impairment in Enugu state are concerned. This will certainly enrich the existing body of knowledge since the identification of their needs will help in developing appropriate counselling techniques towards the resolution of such needs.

Above all, the result of study shall help to change the negative attitude towards those with hearing impairment especially when they start to excel academically, personal-socially and vocationally. That is when they are self actualized using their limited ability to a great advantage. Counselling these students with hearing impairment would therefore go a long way in improving the aspect of self concepts of the students.

Scope of the Study

This study will be conducted in the only secondary school that caters for the secondary education of students with hearing impairment located at Ogbete in Enugu Education Zone of Enugu state. The study be will limited to students with hearing impairment in senior secondary school class 11. They were chosen

because it is expected that, since no counselling services have been provided to the students ever since the school was established, they must have experienced personal- social, educational and vocational problems in the past. The contents scope of the study consists of personal-social, educational and vocational needs of students with hearing impairment.

Research Questions

To guide this study, the following research questions are formulated.

1.     What are the personal social needs of students with hearing impairment?

2.     What are the educational needs of students with hearing impairment?

3.     What are the vocational needs of students with hearing impairment?

4.     What is the influence of gender on personal-social needs of students with hearing impairment?

5.     What is the influence of gender on educational needs of students with hearing impairment?

6.     What is the influence of gender on vocational needs of students with hearing impairment?

Research Hypothesis

The following null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study and will be tested at 0.5 level of significance: