Desing and Development of a Web-Counseling Centre for the Parent of the Deaf Children.


M.Nikolaraizi, and P. Kefalas


Abstract: Among the wide range of counselling services that is nowadays offered, web-counselling is evolving as an alternative or supplementary medium of distance counselling for parents of deaf children. The Internet provides the means for effective communication between parents and professionals as well as between parents themselves. Services may vary from e-mail and discussion groups, access to information sources and interaction through video-conferencing. The primary objective of this paper is to describe the role of web-counselling and the numerous ways through which it can support, inform and ultimately empower parents of deaf children. In addition, a proposal is made regarding the development of a web-counselling centre, the role of the participants who contribute in the centre operation as well as the level of collaboration among them, and also a number of possible difficulties are taken into consideration, ensuring that web-counselling will become an effective medium of distance counselling with forthcoming benefits for the parents of deaf children.

Keywords: Web-Counseling, Parents of the Deaf

Appeared in: In Proceedings of the International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs (ICCHP 2000), Karlsruhe, Germany, July 2000

Available: Hardcopy on request from the authors.


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