Effects of an employer-based intervention on employment outcomes for youth with significant support needs due to autism.
An employer-based ABA package turned 90 percent of autistic youth into employed workers, crushing the usual six percent rate.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Wehman et al. (2017) ran a nine-month program inside a hospital. Youth with autism worked internships while coaches taught job skills and self-care.
Half the teens got the full package. The other half stayed in regular school transition services. Researchers then tracked who landed real jobs.
What they found
Nine out of ten teens in the program gained competitive part-time work three months after graduation. Only six out of a hundred control teens did the same.
One year later, 87 percent of the program group still held their jobs. Just 12 percent of the control group did.
How this fits with other research
Schroeder et al. (2014) tested the same Project SEARCH plus ASD Supports model earlier. Their pilot showed the same giant jump in jobs, so the 2017 study confirms the effect lasts.
Han et al. (2025) pooled 25 ABA studies and found small gains in daily living skills. Paul’s vocational package gives far bigger work outcomes, showing ABA can excel when it targets real jobs.
Burgess et al. (2014) report that typical vocational rehab lands autistic youth only part-time, low-wage spots. Paul’s results look unreal by comparison, but the difference is the added nine-month employer immersion and daily ABA coaching.
Why it matters
If you serve transition-age students, you now have an RCT-backed blueprint: embed students in a workplace, add ABA job coaches, and fade support slowly. The payoff is nine in ten kids working real jobs a year later, not one in ten.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The purpose of this study was to develop and investigate an employer-based 9-month intervention for high school youth with autism spectrum disorder to learn job skills and acquire employment. The intervention modified a program titled Project SEARCH and incorporated the use of applied behavior analysis to develop Project SEARCH plus Autism Spectrum Disorder Supports. A randomized clinical trial compared the implementation of Project SEARCH plus Autism Spectrum Disorder Supports with high school special education services as usual. Participants were 49 high-school-aged individuals between the ages of 18 and 21 years diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder and eligible for supported employment. Students also had to demonstrate independent self-care. At 3 months post-graduation, 90% of the treatment group acquired competitive, part-time employment earning US$9.53-US$10.66 per hour. Furthermore, 87% of those individuals maintained employment at 12 months post-graduation. The control group's employment outcomes were 6% acquiring employment by 3 months post-graduation and 12% acquiring employment by 12 months post-graduation. The positive employment outcomes generated by the treatment group provide evidence that youth with autism spectrum disorder can gain and maintain competitive employment. Additionally, there is evidence that they are able to advance within that time toward more weekly hours worked, while they also displayed increasing independence in the work setting.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2017 · doi:10.1177/1362361316635826