BY ERNST VANBERGEIJK, PH.D., M.S.W.

Parents of children with disabilities worry daily about a myriad of things that are immediate and pressing. It's hard to stop and think about the future, when you are worrying about how your child's play date went, or whether the school bus picked him or her up on time from school. Future employment seems so far away from the daily struggles we face.

Planning for employment may seem like a future luxury, but it is actually essential for the long-term success and survival of our children. Most people do not like to think about this topic. Why worry, anyway? The economy is strong and our unemployment rate is the best that it has been in over nearly 50 years. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the unemployment rate nationally continued to be 3.7% in November. However, the unemployment picture for people with disabilities is far more complex.

The U.S. Department of Labor contends that the unemployment rate for people with disabilities is 9.2%. This unemployment rate is 2½ times greater than the general population. However, it does not tell the complete story. In order to be counted as unemployed, an individual has to engage in certain job-seeking behaviors within the last 30 days in order to be considered as looking for employment. The actual numbers are underreported. Many classes of individuals are not even considered to be a part of the employment numbers. Farm workers, military personnel, institutional ized and incarcerated individuals are not included in these figures. Two of the largest groups of persons with disabilities that are not counted in the unemployment rates are the self-employed and those individuals who have given up looking for work. People with disabilities are twice as likely to be self-employed as their non-disabled peers. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 8 out of 10 persons with a disability have stopped looking for work.

Not only do people with disabilities face unemployment, but they also face under-employment and lower wages. The results vary widely depending upon the type of disability. One group that has a particularly difficult time with employment are transitionaged youth on the autism spectrum. Only 25% of individuals with ASD were employed (Holwerda, 2012, as cited in Walsh, 2014). In Barneveld's (2014) sample, 49% of 169 high-functioning individ uals on the autism spectrum had a paying job (as cited in Walsh, 2014). Shattuck and his team found over ½ of transition-aged youth on the autism spectrum were not employed 2 years following high school. Only about a third of their sample attended college and 55% had paid employment 6 years after high school. These rates are significantly lower when compared to non-disabled peers. Roux (2013) had similar findings. In this sample, not only did 53.4% of young adults on the autism spectrum ever work outside the home for pay, but they had the lowest employment rate among all disability groups. They also held jobs in a fewer number of occupational types and earned an average of $8.10 an hour, which is a lower hourly rate than all other disabilities. As a part of the National Transition Longitudinal Study-2 (NTLS-2), the proportion of young adults with ASDs who were employed was comparable to young adults with deaf-blindness or multiple disabilities. Young adults with ASDs earned 86% as much money as young people with all other disabilities. Half of the young people with ASDs worked less than 20 hours per week, which was at a rate 4 times lower than other disabilities. In fact, as a group, their average number of hours worked per week was 23.3 hours. Young adults in other disability groups worked 35.8 hours per week, which was 36% greater than the ASD group. Finally, the proportion of young adults with ASDs who worked full-time was 1/3 of all other disabilities (Standifer, 2012).

What is a parent to do?

What works when it comes to helping transition-aged youth find and keep employment? Education matters. Whether a student participates in a degree-bearing program, a vocational training program, a college-based certificate program or even one-college course, that student stands a better chance of finding meaningful employment (Getzel & Wehman, 2005). Students with disabilities who earn a bachelor degree are hired at about the same rate as their non-disabled peers. The more education and training an individual receives, the higher his or her lifetime earnings (Julian, 2012). Now, not every student with a disability can earn a college degree. Many can, however, pursue post-secondary vocational training and college or community-based transition program certificates.

Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA), before the age of 14, parents in partnership with their local school district, can identify independent living and pre-employment skills goals, early, as a part of the Individual Education Plan (IEP) process. By the age of 14, a transition goal should be identi fied. The transition goal can be entering the world of work and independent living, or some form of post-secondary education, including pursuing a college degree. By age 16, a detailed transition plan should be developed to support those transition goals. Ideally, a student with a disability, should attempt to find a part-time job for pay. Students with ASDs who had paid employment during high school were more likely to be employed, post high school, than their friends who did not have paying jobs during high school (Chiang, Cheung, Li, & Tsai, 2013). It is important that parents, special educators, and professionals from state offices of vocational rehabilitative (VR) services work collaboratively while the student with a disability is still in high school. Students on the autism spectrum who received services from VR while they were still in high school were far more likely to be employed (Miligore, et al., 2012; Roux, 2018). However, only 48% of ASD youth received VR services (Miligore, et al., 2012). Post-secondary college services were the best predictor of better earning, but only 10% of the VR database received post-secondary college services.

LEARNING AND EARNING: "Students with disabilities who earn a bachelor degree are hired at about the same rate as their non-disabled peers. The more education and training an individual receives, the higher his or her lifetime earnings. Not every student with a disability can earn a college degree, but many can pursue post-secondary vocational training and college or community-based transition program certificates."

how does a parent find post-secondary college services?

There are a few resources available to locate these services. Those include: 1. Think College! thinkcollege.net 2.Heath Center National Youth Transition Center: heath.gwu.edu 3. Comprehensive Transition & Post-secondary (CTP) programs: studentaid.ed.gov/sa/eligibility/intellectual-disabilities 4. Lesley University Threshold Program e-Book - Comprehensive Guide to Transition Programs lesley.edu/six-qualities

This is just a starting point to help identify programs. A diligent internet search will yield more options.

Although much of the previously cited research focuses upon ASDs (a group of young people who have a particularly hard time finding gainful employment), much of what we have learned from transition aged youth with ASDs can be applied to students with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (ID/DD). Pillay and Brownlow (2017) discovered 4 predictors of employment for the ASD population. The first is a supported work place, where the individual with a disability is supported by the employer and perhaps a job coach, vocational advisor, or mentor. Second, the level of ASD traits and behaviors predicted finding and keeping a job. The less severe the traits or behaviors, the more likely the individual is to be employed. Third, they uncovered that functional independence predicted employment. Functional independence skills can be learned while young and as a part of special education and the creation of the annual IEP. These skills can include: waking up on time using alarm clocks or smart phones; dressing appropriately for work; self-administering medication; doing laundry; independent travel on mass transit, financial literacy, etc. The final predictor of employment was family advocacy. This can take many forms, such as ensuring that certain independent living and employment skills goals are a part of the IEP; insisting that state offices of VR services professionals attend IEP meetings; and using the family's professional and personal social networks to help locate employment for their children with a disability. Remember 80% of jobs are not advertised in want ads or on job search sites. Rather, they are discovered through social networks. Do not hesitate to use these networks to find employment for your child.

do post-secondary programs help students With disabilities find employment?

With disabilities find employment? Wehman et al. (2013) randomly assigned students with ASDs to vocational training or the usual services they received from school districts and VR services. The results were surprising – 87.5% of the vocational training group were employed 6 months after the training, compared to only 6.25% of the control group which received the business-as- usual services from the local school district and VR services. Likewise, Moore and Schelling's (2015) research revealed that 9 out of 10 students with ID who graduated from a post-secondary program were employed within 2 years of the study, whereas only ½ of high school graduates with ID were employed. Furthermore, Diament (2015) presented findings at a national conference that neither I.Q. or academic ability were better predictors of employment and independent living than the ability to successfully and consistently complete activi ties of daily living. Post-secondary vocational and transition programs can help students with disabilities not only learn employment skills, but also help them learn important activities of daily living skills that typically are not covered in traditional college curricula.

how does a parent access and pay for these services?

Planning for employment for a child with a disability takes long-term planning and study. Identifying and learning as much as possible about federal policies pertaining to children and youth with disabilities is paramount. The policies inform the par ent who is responsible for the provision of services, what the rules are, and who will pay for those services. The ABLE Act created tax-free savings plans for parents of children with disabilities that were modeled after the 529 College Savings plans and can be used to pay for a wide variety of support and transition services, including paying for college or community-based transition programs. Under IDEIA, IEP teams can fund transition plans that include community-based or college-based transition services, provided that the special education student has not graduated from high school or reached age 21.The Higher Education Opportunity Act , P.L. 110-315, established the Comprehensive Transition and Post-secondary (CTP) program model where students with intellectual disabilities (ID) and other significant cognitive disabilities could attend U.S. Department of Education-approved, college-based transition programs.

The significance of this law is that it allowed students with ID to receive federal student aid in the form of grants, even though they are not enrolled in a degree-bearing program, full time. The Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act (WIOA) (H.R.803) has been hailed as the most significant piece of disability civil rights legislation since the passage of the Americans with Disability Act (ADA). This law is a game changer for transition aged youth because it expands the federal age range from 14-21 to 14-24 years of age, thereby extending the time period during which services can be rendered. Further, it requires state offices of Vocational Rehabilitative services to allocate 15% of their budgets to provide services for transition-aged youth. The law also expanded the kinds of services that now can be funded. Previously, the provision of pre-employment training services could not be paid for using VR funds. Now, such services are covered.

Finally, for families where one of the parents is either an active duty service member or retired military, they may transfer their unused educational benefits to their dependents to pay for college or vocational training, including transition programs under Post 9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Improvements Act of 2008 (P.L. 110-252) and Post 9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Improvements Act of 2010 (P.L. 111-377), more commonly known as the New G.I. Bill and the New G.I. Bill 2.0. The Yellow Ribbon program under these two laws helps families pay for the difference in costs between public and private college-based programs. •

For more in depth reading on the subjects contained in this article please see the references and resources below.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ernst VanBergeijk, Ph.D., M.S.W. is a professor at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA and is the Director of the Threshold Program which is a post-secondary transition program for students with a variety of disabilities. lesley.edu/threshold

References and Resources

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