New perspectives on counselling in audiological habilitation/rehabilitation.

Objective: To develop and apply a pedagogical method focusing on Empowerment, Empathy, Competence, and Counselling: the EC programme, and to present an initial evaluation.

Design: The EC programme was gradually developed within a study circle framework and in dialogue with study circle leaders and participants (clients) with hearing impairment (HI). An evaluation was carried out with the study circle leaders.

Communication as an ecological system.

A conceptual framework for human communication, based on traditional biological ecology, is further developed. The difference between communication at the message and behavioural levels is emphasized. Empirical data are presented from various studies, showing that degree of satisfaction with communication is correlated with how close the outcome is to the memory of function prior to hearing impairment.

Behavioural awareness, interaction and counselling education in audiological rehabilitation: development of methods and application in a pilot study.

In conventional audiological rehabilitation, the hearing therapist interacts with the hearing-impaired person and with significant others. In order to strengthen the personality and self-confidence of the hearing-impaired individual, a different strategy was designed and implemented whereby the pedagogic interaction was directed only towards the hearing-impaired individual, who in turn worked as a tutor/aid/counsellor to the communication partner. On the basis of an interactive communication model, new methods for rehabilitation of subjects with moderate hearing impairment were developed and evaluated in a pilot study on 13 men with noise-induced hearing loss.