In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the employment of adults with autism and other developmental disabilities. Many posts have discussed programs to provide them with training and experience.
Purpose of Review This review provides a highlight of existing evidence-based practices and community support systems that exist to enhance employment outcomes for autistic transition-age youth (TAY) and adults. An update is provided on the current status of these programs and the impact they are having on employment outcomes for this population.
Recent Findings Many programs exist that prove to be efficacious in improving employment outcomes. These programs can be categorized as vocational rehabilitation service system level interventions, provider and consumer level interventions targeting skills related to employment, and consumer level interventions delivered within community vocational rehabilitation or education settings. A more recent increase in programs is consistent with multiple research and policy calls for amplifed programming in this area.
Summary Despite these recent increases, there is still a need to further develop efective programming to support employment outcomes as the growing autistic population age into adulthood. Community-based research and practice should continue to be developed and tested.
From the article:
Although a number of EBPs exist and have been highlighted here, there continues to be a need for new program development for AS adults so that curriculums and programming are in place when the growing AS population age into adulthood and are prepared to ofer longer-term or more comprehensive services. This is consistent with multiple policy and research calls for (1) increased evidence-based interventions; (2) the development of treatment manuals to encourage replication of promising vocational support programs; (3) models for professional development to work with autistic adults in VR; and (4) recommendations to apply efcacious interventions with other populations to inform the advancement of employment approaches for autistic individuals [83•, 84, 85]. Additionally, recent government reports identifed supporting professional development for vocational service providers as a policy priority to improve competitive employment [48–87]. According to the 2020 Federal Youth Transition Plan, two main priorities for adult services research are (1) promoting work-based learning and (2) supporting professional development of service providers [88].
However, for an EBP to be disseminated successfully, the program must be feasible, cost-efective, and acceptable to the end-users, such as VR services, high schools, and vocational training centers [89]. Many of the EBPs described in this review had small sample sizes and often were not delivered within vocational service or pre-employment transition service educational settings. Additionally, many of the skills-based interventions limited their populations to AS individuals without a co-occurring intellectual disability and minimal racial/ethnic diversity, impacting the efectiveness of broad use. To this end, it is critical that future interventions be developed and tested in a way that attends to the needs of the population and service system from the onset, such as using CBPR methods, diverse populations, and testing directly in community settings. Few of the highlighted interventions used such methods. It is also important to be mindful of resources. The interventions that demonstrated positive outcomes with large samples all required signifcant resources such as intensive staf training, large amounts of service hours, and services extending beyond typical service system length which many VR systems are not in a position to ofer with budget and policy constraints. Future studies need to engage a more holistic and systemic approach to services research that includes utilizing dissemination and implementation frameworks, hybrid research designs, and an equity focus to ensure feasibility, accessibility, and scaling up for broad community use. In sum, there is a strong call for further research and funding of community-based, community-involved, EBP development and testing particularly to address autistic individual’s employment and life outcomes.
