Audrey A. Trainor

Predictors of Postschool Employment Outcomes for Young Adults With Severe Disabilities

Although entry into the world of work is a prominent marker of postschool success in the United States, students with severe disabilities often leave high school without the skills, experiences, and supports that lead to meaningful employment. The authors examined the extent to which an array of student, family, and school factors was associated with employment during the 2 years following high school. Having held a paid, community-based job while still in high school was strongly correlated with postschool employment success. In addition, being male and having more independence in self-care, higher social skills, more household responsibilities during adolescence, and higher parent expectations related to future work were all associated with increased odds of employment after school for young adults with severe disabilities. Implications for transition policy and practice are presented along with recommendations for future research addressing the career development of youth with intellectual disabilities, multiple disabilities, and autism.

Diverse Approaches to Parent Advocacy During Special Education Home–School Interactions: Identification and Use of Cultural and Social Capital

Home—school partnerships in special education often include parent advocacy that at times requires specific and specialized knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Parent participation is shaped by access to cultural and social capital resources and is critical to assessment and service delivery. This study explores the types of capital resources parents perceived necessary to their participation via five focus groups of participants from a range of socioeconomic, disability, and racial or ethnic backgrounds through 27 in-depth interviews. NVIVO7 was used to analyze data; categorical meaning and relational themes were coded recursively. Results indicated that intercultural and intracultural differences existed among parents. Advocacy on behalf of one student also required different capital resources than did advocacy for systems change. Discussion focuses on implications of parent advocacy on educational equity.

Factors associated with the early work experiences of adolescents with severe disabilities.

The early work experiences of a nationally representative sample of youth with severe disabilities (i.e., intellectual disabilities, autism, multiple disabilities) were examined. Using data from the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2, we explored the extent to which various student-, family-, school-, and community-level factors were associated with paid work experiences during high school. Findings highlight the elusiveness of early work experiences for many youth with severe disabilities and call attention to malleable factors that may play a role in shaping employment success during high school. Recommendations for research and practice are highlighted.

Summer Employment and Community Experiences of Transition-Age Youth with Severe Disabilities

Although early work experiences during high school represent one of the most consistent predictors of postschool employment for young adults with disabilities, little is known about how these adolescents might access these valuable transition experiences. This study examined the summer employment and community activities of 136 high school students with severe disabilities. The majority of youth was either not working (61.7%) or reported sheltered employment (11.1%). The most prominent predictors of summer employment status were holding a job during the spring semester and teacher expectations for employment. Recommendations for research and practice focus on increasing the capacity of schools, families, and communities to support the involvement of youth with severe disabilities in meaningful summer activities.

From Marginalized to Maximized Opportunities for Diverse Youths With Disabilities A Position Paper of the Division on Career Development and Transition

Current secondary education and transition practices have created differential education and employment outcomes by gender, race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and disability classifications. These differential outcomes result in economic and social marginalization of far too many students with disabilities. Transition education practices need to respond to these differential outcomes and provide targeted, systematic, and long-term opportunities for all students to attain individually and family-determined postschool goals. This position paper recommends an ecological framework for considering the multiple systems that influence transition education and postschool outcomes for diverse youths with disabilities. The authors argue for educators, researchers, and policy makers to attend to social, political, economic, educational, and cultural contexts in developing effective interventions and improving postschool outcomes.

Self-Determination Prospects of Youth With High-Incidence Disabilities: Divergent Perspectives and Related Factors

Promoting student self-determination has emerged as a key component of recommended practices in the field of secondary transition. This article examined the self-determination prospects of 196 youth with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD), learning disabilities (LD), and mild/moderate cognitive disabilities (CD) using the AIR Self-Determination Scale. Teachers reported the capacities of youth with EBD to engage in self-determined behavior to be significantly lower than those of youth with LD but higher than youth with CD. Social skills and problem behavior ratings both emerged as significant predictors of students’ capacity for self-determination but were not associated with the opportunities for self-determination teachers reported providing at school. Teachers generally evaluated students’ capacity for self-determination lower than youth but higher than parents. Implications for transition assessment and planning are discussed and avenues for further research addressing this critical transition domain are suggested.

Perceptions of Adolescent Girls with LD regarding Self-Determination and Postsecondary Transition Planning

Existing research has documented disparate outcomes between young women and men with disabilities in many transition domains, including employment, postsecondary education, and parenting. Similarly, students with learning disabilities (LD) have unique postsecondary transition needs. Promoting self-determination and active participation in transition is recommended in practice regardless of gender and disability type. Because both gender and disability status impact the postsecondary trajectories of young adults, helping young women with LD meet the demands of adulthood, including responding to opportunities for self-determination, is a salient issue. Using qualitative interview data and analysis, this study examined the perceptions of adolescent females with LD regarding self-determination during transition. Findings indicated that participants perceived they were self-determining individuals, yet several key component skills necessary for self-determination were missing. Connections to practice and future research are presented.

Availability of and Access to Career Development Activities for Transition-Age Youth With Disabilities

Equipping youth with and without disabilities for the world of work has been the focus of ongoing legislative and policy initiatives. The authors examined the extent to which career development and vocational activities were available to and accessed by youth with severe disabilities or emotional and behavioral disorders attending 34 urban, suburban, and rural high schools. Although school-level representatives (e.g., administrators, guidance counselors, student services directors) identified an array of career development opportunities offered by their schools, participation by youth with disabilities in these experiences was reported to be fairly limited. Potential factors influencing the participation of youth included disability-related needs and limited professional development opportunities for educators. The authors present recommendations for improving research and practice aimed at better preparing youth with disabilities for their future careers.

Assessing the Transition-Related Strengths and Needs of Adolescents with High-Incidence Disabilities

Although meaningful assessment is considered the cornerstone of transition planning, little empirical guidance is available to inform this assessment process. This study examined the transition-related strengths and needs of 160 students with emotional and/or behavioral disorders (EBD) or learning disabilities (LD) from the perspectives of special educators, parents, and youth. Teachers rated youth with EBD as evidencing more substantial needs than youth with LD across all 9 planning domains. Students ratings were significantly higher than those of their teachers and parents. Variability in the extent to which participants reported having sufficient information to assess each domain, as well as the extent to which they considered each domain to be relevant to planning, highlights the importance of incorporating multiple perspectives into transition planning.

Exploring school-employer partnerships to expand career development and early work experiences for youth with disabilities

Although career development and early work experiences are associated with improved postschool employment outcomes for youth with disabilities, transition personnel report having few natural community partners to support and enhance these experiences. We surveyed 135 chambers of commerce and other employer networks to examine (a) whether and how these networks have partnered previously with local high schools on 18 youth-focused career development activities, (b) the extent to which they would consider such involvement to be feasible, and (c) the influence of disability status of youth on their responses. Although respondents considered a number of youth-focused support activities to be feasible, most chambers had limited previous involvement and their views and experiences were clearly influenced by the disability status of youth. Recommendations for expanding the involvement of employer networks in supporting the career development and early work experiences of youth are offered.