An Exploratory Investigation of the Postsecondary STEM Opportunities for People With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities in the United States.

D'Agostino et al. (2025) phoned and emailed every U.S. college program that serves students with intellectual or developmental disabilities. They asked one question: do you offer any science, tech, engineering, or math classes or labs?

The team also talked in depth with staff from the 14 programs that did offer STEM. They wanted to know what helped or hurt students with IDD join these classes.

Out of about 60 post-secondary programs, only 14 gave students with IDD a chance to take STEM courses. That is roughly one in four.

Staff said the biggest walls were entrance rules that screen out students, no extra tutoring, and plain bias that assumes people with IDD "can’t do" science or math.

Ruble et al. (2019) showed that when parents push hard and team well with teachers, students with ASD actually reach their post-school goals. R et al. now show that for STEM goals, the door is mostly locked no matter how hard families push.

Schaaf et al. (2015) found that calling a high-school course "functional" does not improve jobs or independence for students with autism. R et al. add that college-level STEM is simply missing, so curriculum labels become meaningless when no course exists.

Stephens et al. (2018) scoping review warned that culturally sustaining practices are rare during transition planning. The new survey echoes the warning: only a handful of programs even think about STEM access, let alone culturally relevant STEM access.

If you write transition plans, you can list concrete STEM courses now instead of vague "career exploration." Ask local community-college disability offices what labs welcome students with IDD, and add those contacts to the IEP. One phone call could open a door that national data say is closed to three-quarters of your clients.