Bridging Disciplinary Boundaries (January 11 - 14, 2007)

Purpose: Improving quality of life has become the primary focus as adolescents with disabilities enter adulthood. These adolescents encounter difficulties transitioning into domains such as employment and follow atypical developmental sequences when compared to peers without a disability. Using an ecosystems model within a developmental approach, the program sought to improve the likelihood that adolescents will find and maintain meaningful employment as adults. We developed a program in order to improve quality of life and work readiness as these adolescents transition to adulthood. We tested two hypotheses:

H1: Participating youth will improve their quality of life and attitude toward work. H2: Younger adolescents (<15 years) who continue participation will improve more than older adolescents (age>14 years).

Methods: During a two-year period, we obtained measures at intake, one year into the program, and two years of adolescents aged 12 to 20 years old who receive SSI(n=61). Using the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory 4.0 (PedsQL), we measured physical health functioning, and psychosocial functioning (emotional, social and school), and with the Career Maturity Inventory - Attitude Scale (CMI-AS) we measured employment readiness during a two-year period. We conducted various group comparisons to identify significant improvements.

Results: The 61 adolescents completing the two years (60% male and 40% female) had a mean age of 14.8 years, and ranged from 12 to 20 years. During the baseline period, they functioned below norms in all PedsQL domains. The adolescents scores on physical health were; mean=.7781, s.d.=.17195 (norm=.8019); emotional functioning mean=.6875, s.d.=.21422 (norm=.7810); social functioning mean=.7512, s.d.=.19868 (norm=.8409); school functioning mean=.6088, s.d.=.18492 (norm=.7587); and total mean=.7170, s.d.=.14602 (norm=.7962). Only on the physical health was the difference not significant at the .01 level.

Active adolescents demonstrated significant improvements on the physical health (p=.009) compared to norms. Adolescents remaining active improved their functioning on the social, school and total subscales; they were no longer significantly below norms. Although they improved from their baseline scores on emotional functioning, the adolescents scored significantly below norms (p=.003). They demonstrated their largest improvements on the PedsQL in physical health (p=.000) and school functioning (p=.003). Adolescents demonstrated improvements on all five subscales during their participation.

Career attitudes were above norms in earlier grades, but fell in later grades. Adolescent scores at the beginning of the program indicated that those in the 7th and 8th grades tested significantly higher (.01 level) than the norms. As adolescents entered higher grades, however, they first approached the norms and began to fall behind beginning with the 11th grade.

Implications for Practice and Policy: This suggests the need for early and continued intervention. These adolescents require a high level of service to compete in school and begin considering employment options so that they can improve their quality of life through independence from SSI. This is essential because attitude towards work was higher than norm for seventh graders, but was lower as the adolescent moved to higher grades. Strategies that prepare adolescents for employment ware becomingly increasingly important as governments continue to modify SSI eligibility.