Nebraska secondary school counselor\u27s role in serving students with disabilities

The purposes of this study were: (1) to identify tasks performed by secondary school counselors when serving students with disabilities, and (2) to determine if there was a relation between a counselor\u27s years of experience, number of college credit hours completed in special education, total student caseload, and number of students with disabilities on the counselor\u27s caseload in counseling, consultation, and coordination tasks identified by the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) on the Counselor Role Survey (CRS). A survey of 250 Nebraska secondary school counselors was conducted during the 1995-96 year. A coefficient procedure was used to analyze correlations between counseling tasks on the CRS and the following independent variables: years of counseling experience; number of credit hours completed in special education; total student caseload; and number of students with disabilities on the counselor\u27s caseload. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to determine if there was a difference in items identified as counseling, consultation, and coordination tasks on the CRS and the independent variables previously stated. The results of the study were: (1) tasks most frequently performed by counselors when serving students with disabilities were consultation tasks; (2) a significant correlation was found between the CRS and college credit hours completed in special education and number of students with disabilities on the counselor\u27s caseload; (3) a significant difference was found between coordination items on the CRS and counselor\u27s years of experience, college credit hours completed in special education and number of students with disabilities on the counselor\u27s caseload. Recommendations based on this research were: (1) counselors would benefit from completing courses in special education when serving students with disabilities; (2) counselors would benefit from an expanded array of coordination tasks when serving students with disabilities; (3) counselor training programs may need to increase counseling strategies for students with disabilities; and (4) Nebraska counselors should continue to serve students with disabilities utilizing a team approach