Comparing two causal models of career maturity for hearing-impaired adolescents

Conte (1983) suggested that existing theories of career development are inadequate for disabled populations because they fail to take into consideration the special life events and characteristics of people with a disability. The purpose of this study was to determine if Conte's reservations about contemporary theories could be supported by data. To this end, two causal models of career development were developed: one with five variables unique to the experience of the hearing impaired and the other without. Using data collected from 71 hearing-impaired adolescents, path analyses were conducted and the two models were compared for their ability to explain variance in career maturity. The results suggest that, although the second model may be more descriptive of the career development process for the deaf, it is no more powerful than the first in explaining variance in career maturity.