The postschool outcomes of students with mild intellectual disability: does it get better with time?
Adults with mild ID don’t get better jobs or housing just by getting older — schools must teach these skills before graduation.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers tracked the adults with mild intellectual disability for up to 10 years after high school.
They checked three things each year: paid work, more schooling, and living on their own.
The team wanted to see if life got better as these adults aged into their late 20s and 30s.
What they found
Nothing improved.
At year 1, only a large share had jobs. By year 10, still just a large share.
College attendance stayed stuck at a large share. Independent living barely moved from a large share to a large share.
How this fits with other research
Cameranesi et al. (2022) saw huge gains when adults with profound ID moved from institutions to small homes. Their quality of life jumped in every area within six months.
This looks like a contradiction, but it isn’t. Margherita studied a big change in living setting. Friman (2014) watched adults who stayed in the same community with no special help. Setting matters more than time.
Chung et al. (2019) helps explain why. In high school, students with ID spoke to peers only a large share of class time. That social gap carries into adulthood and shows up in the poor work and living numbers we see here.
Matson et al. (2009) backs this up. Across 23 studies, adults with ID had three-person social circles and 3-4 times less paid work than peers. The pattern starts early and stays stuck.
Why it matters
Time alone won’t fix postschool life for students with mild ID. You need to act before graduation. Build real work experiences, teach apartment skills, and grow peer networks while kids are still in school.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Although students with mild intellectual disability (MID) present unique educational needs and considerations, in research and in practice, they are sometimes aggregated with students with learning disabilities and emotional disorders and considered mild disabilities or aggregated with students with moderate/severe intellectual disability and labelled as intellectual disability. METHOD: This study is a secondary analysis of the NLTS2 data to understand the immediate (i.e. within 2 years) and longer-term outcomes (i.e. within 4 years, within 6 years and within 8 years) of secondary students with MID. Frequency distributions and a significant test were conducted to analyse data from the NLTS2. RESULTS: Students with MID struggled with postschool success when considering employment, postsecondary education, and independent living. Across the span of time since graduation (i.e. within 2 years, within 4 years, within 6 years, and within 8 years), a lack of consistent pattern existed, in general, for these students with regards to outcomes. Students did not necessarily improve or decline in their outcomes the longer they were out of school. CONCLUSIONS: The postschool outcome data warrant critical examination of the factors contributing to the poor outcomes. The field needs to systematically understand what schools can control with regards to improved outcomes for students with MID - particularly employment regardless of the length of time out of school and independent living as the time since school exit increases - and then implement such practices.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2014 · doi:10.1111/jir.12051