Effect of supported employment on vocational rehabilitation outcomes of transition-age youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities: a case control study.
Supported employment lands competitive jobs for transition youth with IDD, especially when they receive SSI and have a diploma.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Wehman et al. (2014) looked at 23,298 teens and young adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities.
They compared kids who got supported employment with kids who got regular vocational rehab.
All youth were leaving school and looking for paid jobs in the community.
What they found
Supported employment doubled the chance of landing a real job.
The boost was biggest for youth who got SSI, were in special ed, and had a diploma.
Autistic youth gained just as much as youth with other developmental disabilities.
How this fits with other research
Wilson et al. (2023) repeated the idea with a newer twist called customized employment and saw the same gains.
Fedoroff et al. (2016) later showed the same model works for adults with autism, keeping a large share in jobs.
Ohan et al. (2015) seems to disagree: transition-age autistic youth had the worst job rates even after lots of generic VR services.
The clash clears up when you see L et al. counted any VR service, while Paul et al. tested a specific, job-first model.
Why it matters
If you write transition plans, push for supported employment, not a menu of vague pre-voc classes.
Start the referral while the student still has an IEP and SSI in place; those factors super-charge the effect.
One clear note in the file—"individual placement, not group crew"—can steer the adult agency toward the model that actually works.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of supported employment intervention on the employment outcomes of transition-age youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities served by the public vocational rehabilitation system using a case-control study design. Data for this study were extracted from the Rehabilitation Services Administration Case Service Report (RSA-911) database for fiscal year 2009. The sample included 23,298 youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities aged between 16 and 25 years old at the time of application. The classification and regression tree (CART) method was used to estimate propensity scores and to adjust for selection bias on the basis of all prominent covariates relevant to the dependent variable (i.e., competitive employment). Results yielded six homogeneous subgroups, and receipt of supported employment was found to increase the employment rates across all of the groups. The effect of supported employment was especially strong for youth who were Social Security beneficiaries, special education students, and individuals with intellectual disabilities or autism who were high school graduates. These findings suggest that supported employment is an effective service for enhancing the vocational rehabilitation outcomes of young adults and provides valuable information for policy makers, health care providers, rehabilitation counselors, and educators.
Intellectual and developmental disabilities, 2014 · doi:10.1352/1934-9556-52.4.296