The Impact of Selected Demographic Variables and Disability Types on Perceptions of Client's Functioning Level

Abstract

Rehabilitation clients and their counselors often perceive the client's level of functioning differently from each other. When incongruence in perceptions exists, treatment goals may be compromised and therapeutic interventions ineffective. The present study investigates counselor and client perceptions of client functioning as a function of demographic variables descriptive of both the clients (n = 41) and the counselors (n = 9). The Client Goal Achievement Instrument (CGAI) was used to measure perception of functioning and paired t tests were used to analyze the scores. Significant differences were found between the counselors and clients on 35 of 50 items. Patterns of significance were shown on individual client demographic variables of age, education, gender, type of disability and race. Significance was also evidenced on counselor variables of age, experience, and education. General findings indicated that clients and their counselors view the client's functioning levels very differently. Implications are for the need to achieve greater congruence between counselors' and clients' perceptions before the development of goals and program implementation.