Examining of the services provided at counseling and research center for children with hearing loss and their families

The aim of this research is to examine the services provided at the Counseling and Research Center (GRC) for children with hearing loss and their families in the age range of 0-6. In order to achieve this goal, the research has been designed as a comparative case study. A total of 23 staff from two different GRC's and 14 parents of children with hearing loss who applied to three different GRC's participated in the research. The data was collected from semi-structured interviews, physical and social observations, researcher's diary, documents and artifacts. The data was analyzed both descriptively and inductively as needed. As a result of the data analysis, four themes were identified: the services provided in three different types of GRC, the challenges encountered, and the suggestions provided. In each theme, services, challenges, and recommendations are compared with the data collected from GRC, similarities and differences are revealed. As a result, common challenges in GRC have been identified. These challenges include: families of children with hearing loss having less contact with GRC, children aged 0-36 months not being followed up at rehabilitation centers, recommendations in the educational diagnosis and evaluation report prepared by GRC not being taken into account in educational institutions, inadequacy of the forms used in evaluating children with hearing loss. In addition to these, there are also different problems in the structure and operation of GRC. The lack of authority of GRC staff to fulfill all responsibilities and the large number of districts, and children. It is suggested that different assessment tools specific to different age groups that allow for the evaluation of the development of children with hearing loss in GRC are used, information programs for families of children with hearing loss are created and the authority and responsibilities of staff working in GRC are clarified in regulations.