The 70-year anniversary of National Disability Employment Awareness Month is celebrated during the month of October this year. The goal of this initiative is to celebrate individuals with disabilities strengthening the workforce and to bring awareness and education concerning the issue.
As a school counselor, advocacy is a key component of our professional identity. Consistent with the principles of IDEA (1997), advocacy for students with disabilities in the school setting is multifaceted. First, and perhaps foremost, school counselors should be advocating for integrated classrooms students with disabilities to be educated in the least restrictive environment possible. This means advocating for integrated classrooms whenever possible. This same ideal is not as frequently realized for adults with disabilities. Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to find employment, but many times this employment is found in groups. For example, one local organization which provides numerous services to individuals with disabilities including employment often differentiates their employment programs. This means that there are sometimes entire staffs of individuals with disabilities working together with limited or no interaction with individuals without disabilities. When compared to the standards upheld in IDEA, this does not seem like the best opportunity for these individuals to continue to develop and flourish. This represents an opportunity for advocacy in the form of encouraging local organizations to employ individuals with disabilities alongside other individuals they employ, rather than finding employment opportunities that may be socially isolating. Further, or perhaps more fundamentally, advocates can campaign for employment of these individuals in general. Currently, unemployment for individuals with disabilities is more than twice as high as it is for non-disabled individuals (United States Department of Labor, 2018). The Department of Labor partners with numerous organizations to encourage advocates to promote their “Working Works” materials to highlight the rich variety of reasons that individuals with disabilities pursue and desire employment opportunities.
An interesting component of developing a servant leadership plan for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities is that one of the major strengths I identified for this population based on my interactions was a heart for service. So how does one act as a servant leader for a group of service-oriented individuals? In this case, it is by helping open doors to opportunities to serve. Any plan to serve this population through servant leadership based on their strengths-based needs assessment – and consistent with the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies (MSJCC, Ratts et al., 2015) – must first identify where the client(s) are in their own understanding of societal oppression and the barriers they have identified for themselves. As a counselor, ally or advocate, this first step in a servant leadership plan focuses on intra-and interpersonal realities for individuals with disabilities. In this case, identifying organizations and programs willing to partner with individuals or groups of individuals with disabilities is sometimes an obstacle to this population thriving in the ways they would like. The MSJCC specifically mentions working with marginalized clients in developing communication skills around power and privilege, as well as reaching out to collaborate with familiar and unfamiliar community members who can help meet a need for the client (Ratts et al., 2015). With this in mind, servant leadership, in this case, will entail sending emails and making phone calls to local organizations to begin conversations about serving opportunities. This should be done in collaboration with the individuals being served in order to help grow their self-advocacy skills and to encourage their empowerment, consistent with servant leadership frameworks (Sendjaya, Sarros, & Santora, 2008).
Intersectionality of multiple identities and how society labels individuals have led to significant systemic challenges for adults with disabilities. Ostensibly, legislation and policy decisions over the past several years have sought to ensure adults with disabilities have increased opportunities to integrate themselves into the community. For those who make use of the services provided by Goodwill for adults with disabilities, this can mean that their experience has changed dramatically over the past few years. When funds were approved to renovate the Goodwill facilities roughly five years ago, the quality of programming and the facilities increased significantly. When the legislation came through a few years later mandating that a larger percentage of programming time be spent out in the community, the money that had just been spent on a renovation seemed almost wasteful. Many individuals in this population thrive when given more opportunities to engage with the community. Others seemed to be happy with the way things were. Specifically, seniors with disabilities may not have a significant voice in deciding what is best for themselves under the recent rule changes. For example, society may find nothing wrong with an 85-year-old man who wants to spend the morning at his home and the afternoon at a coffee shop reading the newspaper before returning home in the early evening. Even if this means only spending a few hours outside of the house, it may be exactly what that individual wants to do and society is largely accepting of that. However, for a senior with a disability, housing or programming services may be obligated to further engage them in the community and, in some cases, help them work towards a goal of employment. The same 85-year-old has significantly less autonomy due to a lack of individualization in policy. All individuals have multiple identities that influence their needs, strengths, and reality. For seniors with disabilities, they are often categorized by a single identity – disability.
From a needs perspective, adults with disabilities are often addressed solely at the bottom of Maslow’s Hierarchy (Maslow, 1943). Services provided to this population are intended to address basic needs such as food, clothing, and shelter. As with any other population however, once these basic needs are met, higher level needs emerge. The need to be actively engaged as a contributing member of society is common among adults with disabilities. In fact, many individuals are strongly service-oriented. Not only do they want to be active in the community through employment and participation in programs, they want to actively give back to the community and serve others. This presents itself as a need for additional opportunities for adults with disabilities to engage with their community. This need can be specifically met by employing the existing strength of public service and community-mindedness of many individuals in the IDD community. Organizations and community programs can mutually benefit alongside adults with disabilities by simply providing opportunities for this population to serve. This would meet a higher-level need of a population by leveraging an existing strength.
Papay, K. C. & Bambara, L. M. (2014). Best practices in transition to adult life for youth with intellectual disabilities. Career Development and Transition for Exceptional Individuals, 37(3), 136-148.
The purpose of the article is to outline best practices for successful transition into adult for exceptional individuals, specifically those with intellectual disabilities. This article is a research article, though no participants were directly enrolled as a part of the study. Instead, data from the National Longitudinal transition Study-2 was analyzed with a best practices perspective to determine if postschool outcomes were better predicted by unalterable variables (such as demographics and family characteristics) or alterable variables (such as best practices in school programs). The literature cited was largely from post-2000, with a few seemingly seminal pieces of literature cited from the 1980s and 1990s. Cited literature focused on the evolution of lists of best practices for working with exceptional youth in schools to foster positive outcomes in postschool transitions. The study used longitudinal data from the NLTS2, which followed a nationally representative sample of 13-16 year-olds with disabilities for a period of 10 years. The survey included 1080 individuals who were identified by either their parents or the school as having an intellectual disability during the first two years of data collection. 490 of these individuals were included in the current study, with the others being removed due to missing data. Results of the study indicated that at least four of the five widely regarded best practices (family involvement, work experiences, life skills instruction, and interagency involvement) significantly predicted postschool success on at least one outcome (two- and four-year employment, postsecondary education, enjoyment of life, and social inclusion). Parental expectation of employment was frequently the strongest predictor of positive outcomes in employment and education. As a school counselor, this article suggests that family engagement and involvement will be particularly important when working with individuals with intellectual disabilities in order to achieve the best adult outcomes. Although this study was limited by nature of its secondary data analysis, the authors appear to have accounted for that limitation as best as possible. Additional discussion could have been given to other implications of specific unalterable variables, but overall the article is a strong reference for future practice with youth and adults with intellectual disabilities.
Campbell, M., Robertson, A., & Jahoda, A. (2014). Psychological therapies for people with intellectual disabilities: Comments on a matrix of evidence for interventions in challenging behavior. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 58(2), 172-188.
This article is a literature review of peer-reviewed literature published between 1980 and 2010 related to psychological therapies which were effective with challenging behavior and persons with intellectual disabilities. A matrix was created to guide future practice. The research cited in the introduction of this article covers a wide range of topics including the history of practice matrices in the UK, definitions, comorbidity, and history of intellectual disability, and the importance of evidence-based therapies. The authors included a wider variety of studies in their matrix than what were considered for the original matrix created by the Scottish government. The authors evaluated 782 articles based on their search criteria. The vast majority of these articles were eliminated from the study. 20 articles were eventually included in the final analysis based on the inclusion criteria set forth by the study team (randomized controlled trial OR quality studies that were not randomized clinical trials OR widely held expert opinions). The authors made few additional insights from these 20 articles other than to categorize them by study type, population, number of participants, intervention, and outcomes. This article is not well suited to be used in practice. Some of the individual studies referenced may be better suited. Due to the limitations of the study, the general lack of evidence-based interventions described for individuals with ID, and the further limitation of the study investigating and being intended for practitioners in Scotland, this article is likely not usable for my own practice.
Plavnick, J. B., Kaid, T., & MacFarland, M. C. (2015). Effects of a school-based socials skills training program for adolescents with autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 45, 2674-2690.
This article summarizes the investigation of video-based group instruction as a social skills intervention for high school-aged youth with comorbid Autism Spectrum Disorder and Intellectual Disability. The literature cited in the introduction of this article is current and well presented. It outlines the existing interventions for teaching social skills to youth with ASD-ID, the efficacy of those interventions, and the literature gap that exists for similar interventions in an adolescent and young adult age range. Four adolescent participants were recruited from a high school. Participants were shown 18 video clips of peer-aged individuals performing a variety of social skills. The videos included the antecedent situation, the request for information, and the appropriate response. Participants were then given an opportunity to perform the social skill (e.g., asking for a specific material) in a constructed, peer-based social setting. Feedback was provided in real time and successes and failures were recorded. Three of the four participants consistently displayed significantly improved abilities to perform the targeted behaviors. The authors hypothesized that the use of peer actors in the videos was significant to the success of the intervention and concluded that Video-based Group Intervention was an appropriate intervention for improving social skill performance in adolescents with ASD-ID. The study was limited by the small sample size and lack of a control or comparison group. It is impossible to say if this method is a better method of intervention than anything else. The within-subjects evaluation of pre- and post-intervention abilities suggests it is better than no intervention and the significance of the results also suggests this is a strong intervention to be considered in a school setting.
Walker, Z., Vasquez, E., & Wienke, W. (2016). The impact of simulated interviews for individuals with intellectual disability. Educational Technology & Society, 19(1), 76-88.
This article is about an intervention to improve generalization and maintenance of social skills related to job interviews in individuals with intellectual disability. The authors constructed a study with five participants and measured their ability to learn and then apply social skills in a live environment. The literature cited throughout the article is recent and relevant to the study at hand. The authors references literature regarding the current rate of employment for individuals with intellectual disabilities, the importance of social skills in general, and different interventions for teaching social skills. Five 18-22 year old participants from a large public transition school. All participants had IQ scores between 55 and 65. The intervention involved a mixed-reality training involving virtual interview and in-person coaching sessions. Interviews involved 11 randomly chosen questions from a bank of 27 scripted questions. The live interview measure occurred 14 to 21 days after the last training session for each participant. The dependent variables measured were overt behaviors, verbal communication style, and content. All participants improved by at least 18 points from pre- to post-test, with three participants improving by 30 points or more. This intervention seems more difficult to implement than the other video-based group intervention and was specific to one brand of intervention. The study also included several interventions (interviews with online avatars combined with coaching), which makes it difficult to identify how best to provide social skills training to this population. In general, I trust the results of this study, but I am unsure of how best to apply them because of the specific brand of the intervention and the numerous variables that were not controlled for individually.
Nijnatten, C. V., & Heestermans, M. (2012). Communicative empowerment of people with intellectual disability. Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disability, 37(2), 100-111.
This article is a qualitative analysis of four conversations between individuals with intellectual disability and their counselors related to sexual issues and other sensitive topics. It is intended to promote communicative empowerment in counseling individuals with intellectual disabilities to counteract the often disempowering experience of institutionalization and subordination. Cited literature is largely current and relevant, summarizing the importance of empowerment, the history of disempowerment, and the particular challenges when counselling this population, without imposing one’s own thoughts and beliefs. The authors performed a conversational analysis on four interactions between clients and counselors. The conversations focused on sexual issues and even abuse. The counselor treated all participants as co-participants in the counseling conversation and empowered them to guide the conversation. The authors describe a difficult balancing act of facilitating the client’s story without imposing too much of the counselor’s expectations and beliefs. In general, the authors support this type of empowering communication style with individuals with disabilities, particularly around the topic of sexual abuse and other sensitive issues as the narrative component is important. Although this was not an empirical study, I do agree with the authors’ viewpoints and conclusion that empowerment of the clients is significant and important when working with adults with disabilities.