The Impact of Preparation, Field Experience and Personal Awareness on Counsleors' Attitudes Toward Providing Services to Section 504 Students with Learning Disabilities

Although school counselors strive to address the needs of all students, children with learning disabilities are often overlooked (Bergin & Bergin, 2005; Dahir, 2004). Under federal requirements, all federally funded schools are required to provide services to students with disabilities. Further, the American School Counselor Association's (ASCA) model for school counseling programs stipulates that school counselors should ensure appropriate services are provided to all students (Milsom, 2002). Research has been completed regarding teachers' attitudes toward complying with the federal mandates (Bateman & Bateman, 2002; Rea & Davis-Dorsey, 2004). There is, however, considerably less information regarding school counselors' roles, and only minimal information on their attitudes and background experience regarding learning disabilities (Frye, 2005; Greene & Valesky, 1998; Milsom, 2002). School counselors from ASCA's southern region were asked to respond to the Attitudes Toward Learning Disabilities Instrument online survey. The findings of this study demonstrated that although school counselors overwhelmingly support ASCA's guidelines, few have the full credentials outlined by the ASCA model. A majority of the counselors in this study had little or no educational training and reported feeling unprepared to address educationally-based tasks such as developing classroom accommodations, or acting as a consultant to the school staff on learning disability issues. In contrast, one third of the participants in this study were certified teachers who reported feeling prepared and confident about all areas of academic and disability services. These results support the conclusions of previous research which indicated that counselor preparation and years of experience were found to be related to more positive attitudes toward inclusion (Greene & Valesky, 1998; Greer & Greer, 1995; Milsom, 2002; Milsom & Akos, 2003) Availability Unrestricted: Release the

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educational Leadership, Counseling, and Foundations

Year

2006

Author dc:creator

• Romano, Dawn

Contributors dc:contributor

• Paradise, Louis V.
• Hulse-Killacky, Diana
• Dupont, Robert

• special needs team
• 504 team
• counselor self-efficacy
• ASCA guidelines
• IDEA and Section 504
• counselors' attitudes
• national standards
• 504 students
• classroom accommodations
• special needs students
• school counselors' role
• multidisciplinary team
• learning disabilities
• Section 504

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/388

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarworks.uno.edu:td-1409