Education and career preparation for youth with disabilities

Abstract

Questions about the nature and adequacy of career preparation for youth with disabilities are especially salient today because the developments from research and demonstration efforts have dramatically altered the expectations for their employability. In sharp contrast to the isolated demonstrations of success stand the data on the employment status of adults with disability. Between 50 and 80% of working-age adults who report a disability are jobless (1,2). Although the normal methods of data collection probably result in undercounting employed persons with disabilities (3), similarly high rates of joblessness have been reported in follow-up studies of recent special-education graduates (4,5). Recent data also indicate that individuals served by publicly supported day or vocational services typically receive low wages, make slow progress toward employment, and are segregated from their nondisabled peers (6,7). High schools and adult services are confronting a changing population. Those adolescents with handicaps now in high schools constitute the first cohort of students who have enjoyed the benefits of the right to legislation. A conservative estimate is that these students have had at least seven years of the free public education guaranteed by P.L.