Employment support for adults on the spectrum

The Partnership for employment support is a collaboration between researchers, employment support practitioners, community organizations, people on the autism spectrum, and family members, working to promote inclusive employment for people on the autism spectrum and people with intellectual disability. To share information that could improve employment outcomes for these populations, we developed infographics based on research evidence to convey key messages relevant to potential employers, educators, decision makers, and job coaches or counsellors. Below is one example of our infographics, which are available on our website.

Example infographic

https://soutienenemploi.research.mcgill.ca/

Employment rates among individuals on the autism spectrum or with intellectual disabilities (ID) remain extremely low. Although job coaching services have contributed to successful employment for these individuals, few studies have examined the importance of such support, and even fewer have explored which services are valued most by stakeholders. We examined the importance of employment support services through employee, employer, and job coach perspectives, and employee and employer satisfaction of job coach support.

We co-designed a multiple-case study (Di Francesco et al., 2021) with a community organization providing employment support to individuals on the autism spectrum or with ID, and their employers. Nine employee-employer-job coach triads evaluated the importance of specific services and rated their satisfaction with the job coach support. Services were rated as important, however, some discrepancies were observed between the groups in their ratings of services. Satisfaction was high for employees and employers; both groups indicated that they would recommend these services. Job coach support was highly valued by all groups, underscoring the need for these services to be widely available, and suggesting that this support may serve as a critical factor in improving employment outcomes among this population.

Publications

Journal Articles

1. Di Francesco, C., Murahara, F., Martin, V., Flanagan, T. & Nadig, A. (2021). The value of employment support services for adults on the autism spectrum and/or with intellectual disabilities: Employee, employer, and job coach perspectives. The Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation.

Selected Conference Presentations

1. Handfield, S., Murahara, F., Martin, V., Ouellet, G., Flanagan, T. & Nadig, A. (2019, May). Partnership for Employment Support for Adults with ASD or Intellectual Disability: Co-Creation of Research Evidence and Knowledge Mobilization Tools. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the International Society for Autism Research, Montreal, Canada.

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