The competence perception to orient school students with disabilities and emotional problems

Background. Within their work school counselors have to deal with the educative inclusion of students with disabilities, nevertheless, their perception of their competences is unknown in order to perform this task. Objective. To evaluate the perception of school counselors regarding their competence to guide students with different types of disabilities. Materials and Methods. This is an observational descriptive study with a transversal type, applied in a population of 235 counselors from Cundinamarca and Boyacá, representing the total counselors population. They were asked a questionnaire presenting five Likert methodology statements, regarding their own capacity to interact with students with physical, sensorial, mental and cognitive disabilities, and emotional problems. Results. Counselors’ characteristics are described taking into account criteria like gender, age, career and the number of students with disabilities that are studying in the institutions they work for. 41 % of the counselors state they are not prepared to orientate children and adolescents with physical disabilities, whereas 37.7 % state they are no prepared to orientate children with sensorial disabilities, 65.3% to orientate students with any mental disability, and 67.7% affirm they are not prepared to orientate students with any cognitive disability and just 9.9 % have difficulties to deal with emotional problems. Conclusions. School counselors realized having a low preparation to orientate students with different disabilities, which could restrain an adequate educational inclusion.