Improving Prediction of Significant Career‐Related Constructs for High School Students With Learning Disabilities

Preparing students with learning disabilities (LDs) to make the transition into the world of work is considered an essential preparation that high schools can provide. However, existing services are limited for career development preparation, and available programs rely on assessments normed for samples of students without LDs. This study examined the predictability of critical career‐related constructs of dysfunctional career thoughts, career maturity, and vocational identity in high school students with LDs, using a sample of 139 such students. Data analyses were performed using multiple regression and t tests. Results indicate that it is possible to predict important career constructs for students with LDs using standardized instruments, which can inform subsequent interventions.     

Backlash against the inclusion of students with learning disabilities in higher education: Implications for transition from post-secondary environments to work

Individuals with learning disabilities (LD), the largest group of people with disabilities in the United States, are attending college in greater numbers than ever before. Post-secondary training is critical for individuals with LD to make successful transitions into a changing and ever more demanding world of work. Research indicating that college faculty are willing to provide requested accommodations to students with LD suggests that they are increasingly likely to experience successful post-secondary outcomes, and therefore improve their vocational prospects. However, college students with LD and the accommodations they receive have recently garnered some highly critical press. These portrayals may portend problems in higher education for students with LD, who must self-identify and make specific accommodation requests to faculty in order to receive the instruction and testing environments that they require to succeed. Efforts to ensure that the LD label is not ubiquitously applied and that college faculty attempt to separate the idea of merit from achievement and implement instructional practices to better meet the educational needs of students with and without LD are recommended.     

Children in Foster Care: A Longitudinal Investigation,by David Fanshel and Eugene B. Shinn. Columbia University Press,New York, 1978. $25. 520 Pp.

This article presents findings of an exploratory study addressing social work program practices regarding psychiatric disabilities among social work students. An e-mail invitation to participate in an online survey was sent to approximately 875 social work educators, with 71 individuals choosing to participate. The findings indicated that 88% of respondents were in programs that had made accommodations and slightly less than 33% were in programs that had psychiatric disability policies. A positive relationship between ratings of the effectiveness of the accommodations and ratings of employability of students with psychiatric disabilities was found. These findings suggest that additional studies are needed to identify effective ways to deal with the complex legal and educational issues involved with accommodations and support.     

Career Service Needs of College Students With Disabilities

Students with disabilities at 2 midwestern universities were surveyed as to their use of campus career-related services, their behavior regarding disability disclosure and accommodations, and their knowledge of ADA (Americans With Disabilities Act, 1990) employment-related guidelines. The results indicate that most students with disabilities do not use existing career development and employment services on campus. Students frequently disclose their disability to a prospective employer; however, students are less likely to request accommodations on the job. These trends may be explained in part by the student's limited knowledge of their employment rights under the ADA.     

Evaluating Differences in College Students' Career Decision Making on the Basis of Disability Status

College students with and without disabilities (N = 121) completed measures of career decision-making self-efficacy (N. E. Betz, K. Klein, & K. M. Taylor, 1996) and career decision-making attributional style (D. A. Luzzo & A. Jenkins-Smith, 1998). Students with disabilities reported significantly lower levels of career decision-making self-efficacy and exhibited more of a pessimistic attributional style for career decision making than did their peers without disabilities. Results are discussed in the context of developing effective career counseling interventions for college students with disabilities.     

Challenges,Barriers, and Opportunities: Social Workers With Disabilities and Experiences in Field Education

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of social work students with disabilities in field education. This qualitative inquiry used semistructured interviews exploring inclusion and accommodations in field education. The 15 participants were graduates of accredited BSW or MSW programs and reported one to five disabilities each. Four themes emerged: different experiences with visible versus invisible disability, confusion about accommodation, field as a learning opportunity regarding disability, and a sense of isolation being a social worker with a disability. This study provides information valuable to social work educators and field instructors regarding strategies for improving opportunities for students with disabilities as future social workers, aligning with the mission and values of the social work profession.     

Predictors of cyber-victimization of higher-education students with and without learning disabilities

Higher-education institutes today face an uphill battle in trying to restrain online misbehavior. This study examined the cyber-victimization experience of 1,052 higher education students with and without learning disabilities. All participants completed five online questionnaires regarding cyber-victimization, social support, self-perception, well-being, and body perception. Results revealed that compare to students without learning disabilities a higher proportion of students with learning disabilities reported cyber-victimization. Positive associations were found between students with learning disabilities and cyber-victimization, and negative correlations between students with learning disabilities, self-perception and well-being. Regression analysis indicated that for students with learning disabilities, predictors of cyber-victimization were low social support, low self-perception, and being female, whereas for students without learning disabilities, the predictors were low social support, low well-being, and low body perception.     

Ensuring That Course Websites Are ADA Compliant

SUMMARY

This paper explores how social work course websites can meet recommendations for ADA compliance. It addresses the current and expected rules for compliance, the types of disabilities that require accommodations and the accommodations that each requires. It discusses the software and hardware features and options available to students with disabilities. It also discusses software available to web authors to create accessible websites and identify noncompliant features. Following these guidelines will enable students with disabilities to fully benefit from online courses-and will offer benefits to users who do not have disabilities, as well.     

Career Rehabilitation: Integration of Vocational Rehabilitation and Career Development in the Twenty‐First Century

The concept of career rehabilitation, a paradigm that proposes integrating perspectives from vocational rehabilitation and career development, is introduced. Counselors are encouraged to assess how vocational handicaps secondary to a disabling problem can affect a client over his or her “worklife” and to adopt a life‐span approach to career decision making of people with disabilities. Four common vocational handicaps are discussed: diminished access to work opportunities, need for workplace accommodations, employer bias in hiring and advancement, and diminished “worklife” expectancy. Counselors testifying in legal forums are encouraged to pursue scholarship on the career development of people with disabilities.     

Negotiating accommodations so that work-based education facilitates career development for youth with disabilities

Workers with disabilities are entitled to have their individual needs accommodated in a way that allows them to perform the essential duties of their job. However, adults with disabilities are often lacking in career development and are ill-prepared to negotiate workplace accommodations. This has led educators to seek workplaces that can accommodate the needs of adolescents with disabilities, so these adolescents can learn to negotiate accommodations and enhance their career development through work-based education. This paper reports on two case studies in which employers had agreed to accommodate the needs of adolescents with disabilities participating in work-based education. Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) framed the analyses of these two cases - a case of a student with physical disabilities and a case of a student with developmental disabilities. SCCT proves valuable in understanding the role of work-based education in the career development of disabled youth.     

‘I should at least be given a chance to try’: the experience of media workers with disabilities in the United States during postsecondary education and early career

This qualitative study described the lived experience of media workers with disabilities in the United States during postsecondary education and their transition to the professional media workplace. While there is ample literature about disability narratives in media products, there is a significant gap in the research about media workers and students with disabilities. Three participants provided face-to-face interviews and submitted media artifacts that they felt provided abstract representations of their experience. Invariant structural themes that emerged were that participants possessed a high level of self-efficacy, and while their colleges provided supportive environments, they faced discrimination in the media workplace. Additionally, they received few or unhelpful educational accommodations and little guidance from faculty as they transitioned from education to work. Findings suggest a need for faculty training in inclusive pedagogies, review of media curricula that considers students with disabilities, and assistance for students as they progress from postsecondary education to the media workplace.     

Career‐Related Parent Support and Career Barriers: An Investigation of Contextual Variables

The authors used social cognitive career theory (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994 ) as the basis for examining the person and contextual variables of gender, ethnicity, educational and career barriers, and career‐related parent support for incoming 1st‐year African American, Asian, Latino, and White college students. Women, as compared to men, perceived significantly higher levels of career barriers but similar levels of coping efficacy in dealing with these barriers. Women also reported receiving more career‐related emotional support from parents than did men. For all participants, career‐related parent support accounted for a significant portion of the variance for perceptions of educational and career barriers and coping efficacy with educational and career barriers.     

Disability Services and College Students with Psychiatric Disabilities

Abstract

Weiner (1999) has suggested that the process of accepting a disability and its associated limitations is often protracted for students with psychiatric disabilities, thus leaving many students unable to fully participate in services or in the design of academic accommodations. This research examines the relationship between psychiatric disability identity and use of academic accommodation services for 57 undergraduates with psychiatric impairments who are experiencing problems in their academic functioning. Willingness to utilize services was related to students' identification as having a psychiatric disability. Social work interventions are needed to support students in accepting psychiatric disabilities while concurrently crafting necessary accommodations.     

Background and Family Variables in a Causal Model of Career Maturity: Comparing Hearing and Hearing-Impaired Adolescents

The purpose of this study was to determine if differences exist in the way seven background, achievement, and family variables explain career maturity attitudes for adolescents with and without a handicap. Using path analytic techniques with data from 70 high school students with impaired hearing and from another 318 with normal hearing, the results suggested more similarities than differences in the patterns of influence among the predetermined variables. The results are discussed in terms of the amount of variance explained, the direct, indirect, and total effects of each of the predictor variables on career maturity, and the subsequent implications for career development theories.     

Transition and the community college: a Career Keys model for students with disabilities

Transition models are needed that address multiple phases in the postsecondary education of students with disabilities. These models must first address the recruitment of high school students with disabilities for community colleges through career exploration experiences that help students clarify their educational and vocational interests and relate those interests to a two-year postsecondary program. Students with disabilities then need a comprehensive service program while attending community college to help them identify accommodation needs in classroom and workplace environments and develop the skills to request such accommodations from their instructors and employers. With this skill base, they are well prepared to initiate the next transition in their lives, that is, the movement from the community college to a four-year educational institution or to employment. Programs are needed to facilitate this transition, such as a placement planning seminar involving rehabilitation professionals and employers and an accommodation follow-up assessment with students in their new educational and employment settings. The "Career Keys" model describes how to deliver the services needed in each of these critical transition phases.     

Career Maturity: The Construct's Validity,Vitality, and Viability

Career maturity is a useful construct for studying adolescents, but it has limits. Professional counselors need to integrate personality and decision-making style into research on career maturity as well as give more than a passing nod to developmental theory. They cannot study career development at the individual level alone; context matters and is an integral part of career development. The amount of variance in individual career development accounted for by context and change may be so great that longitudinal research on individuals may not be worthwhile.     

User needs evaluation of workplace accommodations

This study examined the multi-faceted issues surrounding workplace accommodation for workers with disabilities. A user needs survey of 510 disabled individuals examined the types of technology and accommodations needed to perform work and employment-related activities. Workers with disabilities used a variety of workplace accommodations to overcome difficulties with functional limitations. Some differences existed in the types of accommodations used by older and younger workers who had the same functional limitation. Workers of all ages were not likely to report mental limitations, and those who did were not likely to utilize workplace accommodations, with the exception of some memory strategies. For those with hearing loss, younger workers used sign language more frequently, while pre-retirement and retirement age workers used more hearing aids. Working age adults with vision impairments used electronic documents, Braille, and CCTVs more than pre-retirement or retirement age workers. Regardless of age, workers reporting functional limitations often received no workplace accommodations.     

Strategies to Foster the Career Development of People with Disabilities

Abstract

This paper addresses career development strategy within the context of social work practice in rehabilitation and disability. The author outlines the career development needs of people with disabilities and identifies contemporary ways of thinking about career development. Four specific career development tactics are discussed involving the provision of vicarious experiences, identification and appreciation of performance accomplishments, verbal persuasion to support appropriate risk-taking, and emotional arousal that facilitates the expression of feelings and the motivation to act. These tactics are promising avenues for strengthening vocational and career self-efficacy with the aim of helping people with disabilities to augment their career maturity and increase their personal flexibility.     

The Relation of Negative Career Thoughts to Depression and Hopelessness

Although some research literature focuses on the integration of mental health and career counseling, there has been little that examines both areas in relation to depression and hopelessness. This study investigated the relationship among dysfunctional career thinking, depression, and hopelessness in a sample of 139 undergraduate and graduate students seeking drop‐in or individual career counseling services at a university career center. The authors found that two aspects of dysfunctional career thinking, decision‐making confusion and commitment anxiety, accounted for a significant amount of variance in depression. Decision‐making confusion also accounted for a significant amount of variance in hopelessness. Implications for counseling practice include the need for more careful screening of career clients who present with high levels of anxiety and negative thinking. Future research could involve more diverse client populations, such as unemployed adults, and explore the use of additional screening measures to assess the intersection of career and mental health issues.     

Learning disabled students and access to accommodations: socioeconomic status,capital, and stigma

In the 1990s, Canadian universities began implementing policies to accommodate learning disabled students. While such policies appear to make post-secondary education more accessible, students must manage considerable complexity and absorb social and financial costs to receive accommodations. Through interviews with learning disabled students, this research explores the effects of socio-economic status (SES) on how, or whether, students access accommodations at a Nova Scotian university. Drawing on the work of Bourdieu and Goffman, this study suggests that SES affects students’ abilities to navigate the accommodation process successfully, and that accommodation policies, while important, may not ensure equal access to accommodations.