Brown S.D., Lent R. (Editors). Career development and counseling: putting theory and research to work

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to manage complexity in almost every occupation (Coates, Jarrat, & Mahaffie,

1991). These new requirements have increased the importance of postsecondary

education for the success of anyone entering the workforce. After reviewing the

literature on the current status and trends of the workforce and the employment

rates and trends of people with disabilities, Szymanski, Hershenson, et al. (1996)

recommended that “education should be a consideration in assisting people with

disabilities in entering and retaining value in the labor force” (p. 33). However,

research on the experiences of people with disabilities in postsecondary educa-

tion indicates that they have a significantly lower probability of graduating

(Hurst & Smerdon, 2000) and are likely to face discrimination and social isolation

(Loewen, 1993; Wiseman, Emry, & Morgan, 1988). Furthermore, the majority of

college students with disabilities who graduate do so from majors outside the sci-

ence and technology fields (National Science Foundation, 1999)—the fields show-

ing the most growth in the changing economy—and possess few marketable

occupational skills (Roessler, 1987).

ACK OF

VAILABLE

OMMUNITY

MPLOYMENT

ERVICES

Although special education services for children with disabilities is a federal man-

date, there is no such universal program for young adults after they leave school.

Available programs are generally funded through public monies, so they are sus-

ceptible to downsizing in state and federal budgets. The federal Workforce Invest-

ment Act of 1998 (PL 105-220) was enacted partially to address the issue of

inadequate community-based services through the establishment of career and em-

ployment One Stop Centers, offering an array of information, resources, and refer-

rals to youth and young adults with disabilities, among other groups. However,

implementation of the One Stop concept has been inconsistent across state and

local jurisdictions, and the issue of how well such generic services provide prepa-

ration and assistance to individuals with disabilities has not been ascertained.

ROFESSIONAL

TTITUDES TOWARD

MPLOYMENT

People with disabilities who need services the most are frequently the least likely

to be served because of the perceived difficulties in providing these services, as

well as the intensity and duration of services required (Mank, 1994). Moreover,

people with severe disabilities are not often provided with career or vocational

choices; instead, they are frequently placed in entry-level jobs that they leave be-

cause of lack of interest and choice in the matter (Fabian, 1992). According to

Szy

manski and Trueba (1994), “at least some of the difficulties faced by persons

with disabilities are not the result of functional impairments, but rather are the

result of a castification process embedded in societal institutions for rehabilita-

tion and education and enforced by well-meaning professionals” (p. 195).

LEGISLATION AND DISABILITY

A long federal tradition of laws has provided access to educational and voca-

tional opportunities for people with disabilities. Knowledge of federal legisla-

tion that affects disability benefits and services is a critical matter for those who

provide career services to people with disabilities. This section describes the

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Promoting the Career Potential of Youth with Disabilities 557

major disability-

related legislation, with particular relevance to practice and to

the specific barriers to employment described earlier. These laws include the In-

dividuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act,

the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act, and the Workforce In-

vestment Act of 1998.

NDIVIDUALS WITH

ISABILITIES

DUCATION

(PL 101-476)

The IDEA establishes specific federal regulations for youth with disabilities who

are transitioning from school to adult life. Although special education legislation

has existed since the landmark 1976 Education of All Handicapped Children

(EAHC) Act, it was not until this act

was amended in 1990 and 1997 and renamed

the Individuals with Disabilities Ed

ucation Act that it addressed the issue of spe-

cial education youth as they prepare to leave secondary school for adult life.

Specifically, IDEA requires schools to develop transition plans that stipulate ser-

vices and outcomes each special education student requires to make a successful

transition. The transition objectives covered under IDEA include:

1. Postsecondary education and vocational training.

2. Employment.

3. Independent living.

4. Social and community participation.

As a result of IDEA, sweeping changes in both programs and policies have

been seen over the past two decades (Stodden & Dowrick, 2000). In some cases,

these changes have positively affected postschool situations for individuals with

disabilities, particularly those with more severe disabilities, such as mental re-

tarda

tion and mental health conditions. Although there has been an uneven im-

plementation of transition practices across the country and almost 50% of the

transition-age population does not qualify for services from adult systems (Hay-

ward & Schmidt-Davis, 2000), a plethora of models and practices have been de-

scribed and, to an extent, validated in the literature. These programs are

discussed later in the chapter.

MERICANS WITH

ISABILITIES

(PL 101-336)

The ADA, enacted in 1990, represented a major thrust forward for disability pol-

icy in America (Miller, 2000). Its provisions prohibit discrimination against peo-

ple with disabilities in all facets of life: employment, public services, private

businesses, telecommunications, and transportation. For career and employment-

related counselors, the major interest is in two key areas of the ADA: (1) Title I,

which covers employment, and (2) the definition of the protected individual (i.e.,

Who is an individual with a disability?).

The latter issue has received a great deal of attention in policy and legal circles

since the act first passed. The ADA defines disability as a “physical, mental or

emotional impairment” that substantially limits functioning in a major life activ-

ity. Major life activities are defined broadly and include walking, speaking,

breathing, seeing, learning, caring for self, and working, among others. Gener-

ally, the courts have increasingly limited the definition of disability under the

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act, for example, determining that a disability is no longer covered when it can be

mitigated by devices or equipment (such as eyeglasses) or medication (such as an-

tidepressants; NCD, 2003). Although such a change may seem minor, it has major

implications for employees who, for example, may have a psychiatric condition

that is controlled by medication but who still would benefit from accommoda-

tions in the workplace that would otherwise be offered under the protections of

the act.

Another key area under Title I, the employment provision of the ADA, is the

idea of reasonable accommodations. The law states that employers must provide

“reasonable accommodations” that would enable a qualified individual with a

disability to perform the essential functions of a job. What is important here is

the legal word qualified, meaning that an applicant or employee must have the req-

uisite background, credentials, education, or experience to perform the essential

functions of the job with or without an accommodation. Thus, a clerical employee

who demonstrates requisite typing speed and accuracy and who uses a wheel-

chair might need a computer keyboard hand rest that would allow him or her to

type more easily. Typically, reasonable accommodations are modifications to the

physical space, equipment, procedures, policies, or practices.

ICKET TO

ORK AND

ORK

NCENTIVES

MPROVEMENT

1999 (PL 106-170)

This legislation was enacted in an attempt to dismantle the work disincentives in

the SSA’s income support programs for people with disabilities. These programs

had served as employment barriers because they limited the amount of monthly

and annual income that beneficiaries could earn without jeopardizing their bene-

fits, including access to federal health care insurance. Many studies of the effect

of SSA on work-related decisions of people with disabilities cited the fear of loss

of health insurance (Medicaid or Medicare) as a primary reason for refusing to

work or return to work (Burkhauser & Wittenburg, 1996).

In 1999, Congress enacted the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improve-

ment Act (TWIIA) to encourage states to expand health care coverage to working

individuals with disabilities by extending the insurance time limits for covered

individuals as they reenter the workplace. The “ticket” portion of the act puts the

decision about seeking a vocational service provider into the hands of the client

by providing him or her with a voucher that can be used to purchase these ser-

vices from private providers. Similar to managed care systems in mental health,

service providers are paid by SSA based on vocational outcomes. Although the

voucher system represents a sweeping policy shift in service provision, it is too

soon to measure the impact of its implementation.

ORKFORCE

NVESTMENT

CT OF

1998 (PL 105-220)

The Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998 was enacted to consolidate and im-

prove employment, training, literacy, and vocational rehabilitation programs in

the United States. Under this act, states are required to write workforce develop-

ment plans that specifically address how the state will meet the vocational and

employment-related needs of diverse populations requiring services, including

transitioning youth, adults with disabilities, unemployed and underemployed

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Promoting the Career Potential of Youth with Disabilities 559

workers, and various other constituents with unmet needs. Although states

vary in how they implement the WIA, most have established One Stop Centers,

where people who require various services to support employment, such as vo-

cational rehabilitation, counseling, or employment training, can access them in

one setting.

Title IV of the WIA covers the reauthorization of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

Important provisions have implications for career planning for persons with dis-

abilities. For example, self-determination and vocational choice have been man-

dated within the Act, insofar as its provisions apply to the state/federal system of

services. This aspect of the Act reflects the changes in laws over the past several

decades that have emphasized equitable education and treatment for individuals

with disabilities.

FACTORS INFLUENCING VOCATIONAL BEHAVIOR

For individuals with disabilities, careers are influenced by external issues and

barriers, such as social policy and laws, as well as internal factors, such as func-

tional capacities and psychosocial factors.

UNCTIONAL

APACITIES AND

ORK

Although federal definitions of disability vary and may create confusion within

systems of disability services, it is now a widely accepted assumption that dis-

ability should be defined within an environmental or ecological context. This ap-

proach means shifting the focus from a symptom or impairment orientation to a

functional one. In other words, a condition or impairment is a disability only to

the extent that it affects an individual’s functioning in one or more environments,

such as employment. This represents a biopsychosocial approach to conceptualiz-

ing disability where, for example, there is a physical or biological condition that

may alter awareness, perception, or adjustment and is influenced by and, in turn,

influences social behavior and interpersonal functioning. To the extent that the

environment does influence perceptions and behavior, a functional understand-

ing of disability incorporates a reciprocal interaction perspective. For example,

negative social attitudes or stigma can cause stress reactions, thus exacerbating

medical or psychological conditions. This is particularly true for youth and young

adults with psychiatric or learning disabilities, who may be particularly vulner-

able to social attitudes.

There are several important assumptions underlying a functional or functional

capacities approach to exploring the influence of impairments or conditions on

vocational performance. First, functional capacities are to a great extent situa-

tionally specific (MacDonald-Wilson, Rogers, & Anthony, 2001). A person who is

totally blind, for example, may experience minimal or no limitations within her

own home, or even neighborhood, but may be significantly limited in a new set-

ting. A person who has schizophrenia may not be able to maintain social relation-

ships but may be able to function well in certain jobs. As early research in the

field suggested, functioning in one environment is not predictive of functioning

in another (Neff, 1967).

Second, it is more important to modify or shape the physical and even social

environment than to change or modify the individual. This assumption is what

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gave rise to the disability rights movement in the 1960s and the ADA. The World

Health Organization (WHO) recently broadened its definition of disability to in-

clude the unique interaction among the person, the health condition, and the en-

vironment in a model that emphasizes functioning. A classification system based

on this model was approved by the World Health Assembly and is called the In-

ternational Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (WHO, 2001).

A third important assumption implicit in the functional shift was the need to

conduct vocational and career assessments that emphasize a person-in-environment

perspective. For example, knowing that one of the symptoms of schizophrenia

may be auditory hallucinations matters less in planning for employment than

does figuring out how this particular symptom compromises or interferes with

functioning in an environmental context. Or identifying that a youth has a spe-

cific learning disability such as dyslexia means figuring out, again, how this

presents a functional limitation in a specific environmental context.

The manner in which functional capacities affect work performance has al-

ways attracted a great deal of attention in the rehabilitation/career-related litera-

ture. Of particular importance have been functional capacities that directly affect

performance, as well as the perceived effect they have on coworkers and supervi-

sors. For example, the literature has suggested that employers tend to rely on

stereotypes of disability and thus exaggerate the extent to which a functional im-

pairment may interfere with vocational performance (Feurstein & Thebarge,

1991; Unger, 2001). The ADA has discouraged the use of stereotypes by employers

in arbitrarily ruling out classes of individuals with disabilities based on stereo-

types, but certain stereotypes tend to persist (Unger, 2001). The effect that these

attitudes continue to have on an individual’s perception of his or her own capaci-

ties and the psychological issues that arise from disability are discussed in the

next section.

SYCHOSOCIAL

SSUES

Understanding disability as an interplay of personal and environmental factors pro-

vides a framework for assessing individual abilities within a specific situational

context. It also provides a basis for exploring the manner in which psychological at-

tributes interact with social setting factors to influence individual perceptions

about vocational choice and performance (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994).

In terms of social attitudes, empirical research indicates that employer atti-

tudes toward individuals with disabilities, although improved since the passage

of the ADA, remain moderately negative, particularly toward certain disability

groups (Unger, 2001). For example, negative stereotypes about people with psy-

chiatric conditions have contributed to the particularly poor employment rates

associated with this group (Diksa & Rogers, 1996). Other surveys of attitudes

have identified employer concern about the work performance of workers with

mental and other disabilities (Blanck, 1998).

Less often considered within the rehabilitation literature is the effect that neg-

ative attitudes have on decreasing work-related self-efficacy and depressing fu-

ture work expectations (Fabian, 2000), thereby eroding the work motivation of

people with disabilities (Baron, 2000). Similar processes have been described in

lation to certain minority groups (M. T. Brown, 1995; Hackett & Betz, 1981;

Hackett, Betz, Casas, & Rocha-Singh, 1992; Hackett & Byars, 1996). For people

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Promoting the Career Potential of Youth with Disabilities 561

with disabilities, some of whom may have little experience with competitive em-

ployment, self-perceptions of work capacity may thus be severely limited, con-

straining vocational exploration as well as choice. These factors are taken into

account in the career practices described later.

Another significant psychosocial area to be addressed emerges from the indi-

vidualistic adjustment perspective on disability, which holds that reactions to

disability depend on a range of individual attributes and circumstances, such as

personal history of depression, family background and support, educational at-

tainment, work-related aspirations, and age. These individual factors, together

with environmental supports and available services, are associated with work

entry and work retention across a variety of disability groups, including, for ex-

ample, individuals with psychiatric conditions (Wewiorski & Fabian, 2004),

spinal cord injuries (Krause & Anson, 1997), and mental retardation (Westbrook,

Legge, & Pennay, 1993).

CAREER ISSUES FOR INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES

Career counseling and career development are relatively new concepts in

disability studies, even though vocational rehabilitation programs have existed

for 100 years. Early conceptions of disability that focused on individual deficits

tended to severely limit, if not disregard, career choice activities. For example,

early conceptions of mental retardation emphasized only the negative attributes

of the individual, labeling people as “defective” or “simple minded” (Trent,

1994). Construing mental retardation as an untreatable cognitive deficit essen-

tially relegated most of these individuals either to institutions or to “sheltered

workshops,” performing repetitive tasks in segregated facilities (Olshansky,

1976). As discussed earlier, as the perception of disability shifted from a

problem-in-the-person perspective to a problem in the environment, the realm

of potential job possibilities enlarged, as community-based employment be-

came a viable option, along with the provision of sufficient supports and re-

sources (Wehman, West, & Kregel, 1999). Enlarging career or employment

opportunities meant that people had a choice in the type of job or career that

they might select.

Another event contributing to an increased emphasis on career choice was

changes in laws, starting with the EAHC, which mandated including children

and youth with disabilities in general education programs, rather than segregat-

ing them in special classrooms or schools. As a result, children with disabilities

were exposed to general education curricula in the schools, as well as school

guidance services that emphasized post-high school achievement, such as en-

rolling in colleges or preparing for a job. In this way, laws that mandated inclusive

education paved the way for equal opportunity and set the stage for encouraging

professionals, families, and youth to think in new ways about career goals.

In fact, later amendments to special education legislation, culminating in the

IDEA discussed earlier, mandated post-high school planning by requiring that all

special education students have a transition plan by the time they turned 16. The

requirement for transition planning and the parallel need to provide vocational

and career intervention services necessary to achieve it resulted in a great deal of

national attention toward school-to-work and school-to-adult-life programs for

students with disabilities.

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RANSITION TO

DULT

IFE

ROGRAMS

The concept of school-to-work transition programs was popularized in the mid-

1980s (Will, 1984) and codified in subsequent federal legislation. The purpose of

these programs was to assist youth with disabilities to identify career and life

goals before their exit from high school to have sufficient time to prepare to

achieve those goals. The aim of these programs is to mitigate the poor postschool

outcomes that were reported for youth with disabilities, such as high unemploy-

ment, delinquency, and poverty (Wagner & Blackorby, 1996). Studies over the past

several decades have identified effective transition programs and practices, which

include vocational training, paid employment before school exit, community-

based instruction, and service coordination between educational and other per-

sonnel, such as rehabilitation counselors, mental health professionals, and social

services staffs (Kohler & Chapman, 1999).

That these programs are achieving some measure of success is reflected in

some of the positive indicators that may be attributed to them. For example, data

from the National Council on Disability (2000) indicated that about 50% of young

adults with disabilities (ages 20 to 29) who expressed a desire to work are work-

ing, while enrollment of disabled students in postsecondary institutions rose

from 2.3% in 1978 to 9.8% in 1998 (Henderson, 1999). While these figures are

heartening, they also illustrate the progress that still needs to be made. Many is-

sues and policies will affect how much progress will be made by youth with dis-

abilities in realizing equal employment and educational opportunities, many of

which have to do with external barriers described earlier, such as work disincen-

tives, employment discrimination, and lack of available community services.

However, the emerging success of school-to-adult-life transition programs has

stimulated interest in developing career interventions that help students to man-

age these barriers, as well as provide skills that help them to maximize career

choice. The next section describes career theory and practice issues for youth

with disabilities.

ONTEXT OF

AREERS FOR

EOPLE WITH

ISABILITIES

However unfortunate it is, there is little doubt that disability itself plays a signif-

icant role in shaping employment prospects for youth and young adults. Several

studies have shown that type and severity of disability are significant determi-

nants of employment outcome, with research concluding that postschool employ-

ment is highest among young adults with learning disabilities and lowest among

those with multiple or severe impairments, such as mental retardation (Wagner &

Blackorby, 1996). Similar to general population findings, employment rates are

also higher for young men than women and higher among Caucasians than other

ethnic groups (Research Triangle International, 2003).

It is certainly consistent with career theory to describe disability or impairment

in terms of the specific challenges or barriers it imposes on choice and perfor-

mance (Szymanski, Enright, Hershenson, & Ettinger, 2003). Some of the barriers

that arise from disability have been described earlier and include social stigma

(e.g., Stone, Stone, & Dipboye, 1992), employment discrimination (Unger, 2001),

inadequate vocational training and preparation (e.g., Ochs & Roessler, 2001), and

social security disincentives (e.g., Noble, 1998). Generally, these external barriers

interact with individual attributes, such as poor self-efficacy and lowered career

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Promoting the Career Potential of Youth with Disabilities 563

aspirations, to hamper the career development process. Thus, disability or impair-

ment may be viewed from the same perspective as are other status conditions,

such as age or race, in understanding career-related behavior and developing in-

terventions to promote it.

Within this context, disability is not seen as the fundamental attribute around

which vocational development proceeds, but rather as an individual risk factor

that can interfere with the career planning and development sequence (Szyman-

ski, 1999). For example, children with disabilities in special education may lack

exposure to career role models that foster the development of vocational explo-

ration via occupational daydreaming and role playing (Benz & Halpern, 1993).

Thus, disability might yield inadequate career education resulting from segre-

gated classrooms, lack of adequately trained personnel, and other school-based

factors (Turnball, 1990). Children in special education with inadequate career

preparation, then, may develop a diminished sense of career self-efficacy, one of

the most potent attributes linked to career choice and vocational outcome (see

Anderson & Brown, 1997; Lent, Chapter 5, this volume). Even though best prac-

tices in career development would suggest the need to include career education

for all students, the uneven and inconsistent implementation of these practices in

special education and transition planning unfortunately remains the norm (Ochs

& Roessler, 2001).

Another important consideration in career interventions for youth with dis-

abilities is the surprising dearth of theory-building studies that would help ex-

plain and eventually improve career education outcomes. Szymanski et al. (2003)

attributed the lack of studies in this area to a number of factors, such as the het-

erogeneity of the population and the lack of psychometrically sound instruments

for measuring constructs for individuals with disabilities. Another factor limit-

ing theory-based research has been the traditional focus in transition and rehabil-

itation programs on initial employment as the ultimate outcome, rather than

encouraging a perspective on the process of career development. This outcome-

oriented focus is one result of federal initiatives and funding regulations that em-

phasize getting a job and encourage program evaluation studies that divorce

theory from practice. Finally, a relative lack of attention to persons with disabili-

ties in the general career development and research literature may reflect general

stereotypes and social stigma toward individuals with disabilities.

HEORY

-B

ASED

ONSTRUCTS

There have been a number of papers in the disability literature describing how

extant career theories relate to people with disabilities, but relatively few empiri-

cal studies of how theoretical constructs could be validated with this population

(Shahnasarian, 2001). However, some career constructs, notably those emerging

from Social Cognitive Career Theory (Lent et al., 1994), have been applied to the

career behavior of different groups of individuals with disabilities.

Self-Efficacy and Outcome Expectancies Interest in self-efficacy as a useful con-

struct in explaining career behavior emerges from studies that have examined the

utility of this construct in various special populations, including women (Hackett

& Betz, 1981) and racial-ethnic minorities (Hackett & Byars, 1996). In the disabil-

ity literature, self-efficacy has also been studied as a predictor of work status

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among samples of individuals with a variety of impairments. For example, several

authors have examined the relation of self-efficacy beliefs to career interests and

behavior of students with learning and emotional disabilities, suggesting that not

only do such students have lower efficacy beliefs than their nondisabled peers

(Ochs & Roessler, 2001; Slemon & Shafir, 1997) but also self-efficacy beliefs played

an important role in understanding their career choice and interests. Paganos and

DuBois (1999) investigated the relationship between self-efficacy beliefs and ca-

reer interests in high school students with learning disabilities and found that

self-efficacy was the strongest contributor to career interests for these students,

well beyond the contribution of outcome expectancies. Similarly, Ochs and

Roessler found significantly lower career self-efficacy beliefs among high school

students with learning disabilities when compared to their nondisabled peers. In

a study of students with serious emotional disturbance (SED), Willis (2002) found

self-efficacy beliefs to be a significant predictor of postschool employment.

Studies have also examined the utility of social cognitive predictors of employ-

ment outcomes for other disabled groups. For example, Regenold, Sherman, and

Fenzel (1999) found that higher self-efficacy beliefs predicted employment status

for a sample of individuals with psychiatric disorders. In another study of predic-

tors of vocational outcome among adults with psychiatric disorders, Mowbray,

Bybee, Harris, and McCrohan (1995) identified positive outcome expectations

concerning return to work to be most strongly associated with work status in a

supported employment program. Altmaier, Russell, Kao, Lehmann, and Wein-

stein (1993) found self-efficacy related to rehabilitation outcome for clients with

low back pain. Barlow, Wright, and Cullen (2002) found that higher self-efficacy

beliefs were associated with the ability to manage disability issues during job in-

terviews among a heterogeneous group of people with disabilities.

Efficacy beliefs have also been the targets of intervention studies. Conyers and

Szymanski (1998) found that a brief career intervention was effective in improv-

ing career self-efficacy for college students with and without disabilities. Enright

(1997) evaluated a short-term career intervention designed to improve career

cision-making efficacy and self-esteem among a heterogeneous group of adults

with disabilities. Although the experimental group did not indicate higher levels

of career decision-making self-efficacy, she did find an increase in what she

called life decision-making self-efficacy.

Career Maturity Career maturity, a construct emerging from Super’s career de-

velopment model (Super, Savickas, & Super, 1996), has also been addressed in the

disability literature. In this research, the timing of the disability during a per-

son’s career development is important to consider, and three subgroups of per-

sons with disabilities have been identified and hypothesized to undergo different

career development processes: those with precareer-onset disabilities, those with

midcareer-onset disabilities, and those with progressive or episodic disabilities

(Beveridge et al., 2002).

Persons with precareer disabilities enter and progress through their career de-

velopment with a disability. The information on the lack of adequate preparation

for the workplace best applies to these individuals, for example, youth with de-

velopmental or learning disabilities severe enough to warrant special education

services. Individuals with midcareer disabilities acquire or are diagnosed as hav-

ing a disability at some point after their career entry. According to Her

shenson

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Promoting the Career Potential of Youth with Disabilities 565

(1996), if the impairments or perceived impairments associated with the disabil-

ity affect the person’s work competencies, it will result in subsequent changes

in work personality and work goals. Super et al. (1996) referred to this as a

“minicycle,” involving the recycling of new growth, reexploration, and reestab-

lishment. Depending on the age of initial onset or diagnosis, the effects of pro-

gressive or episodic disabilities can be similar to those of pre- or midcareer

disabilities. An important difference is that each significant functional change

in an individual’s disability has the potential to have a similar effect to that of

acquiring a midcareer disability, as well as a potential cumulative effect. It is

necessary to understand the effect of each episode or change in functional abil-

ities on the individual’s attitudes about both work and disability.

Lindstrom and Benz (2002) identified three distinct phases of career maturity

among a small sample of young women with learning disabilities: (1) unsettled,

(2) exploratory, and (3) focused. Several studies have indicated that individuals

with disabilities manifest lower levels of career maturity when compared to their

nondisabled peers (e.g., Hitchings, Luzzo, Retish, Horvbath, & Ristow, 1998).

Mori (1982) found that special education students were significantly less knowl-

edgeable about job duties than were general education students. Rojewski (1993)

found that learning-disabled high school students scored lower on the career ma-

turity index than did their nondisabled counterparts. Ochs and Roessler (2001)

similarly found lower levels of career maturity and career information among

disabled high school students. Although the number of studies exploring career

maturity and other developmental constructs among youth and young adults

with disabilities is small, there is emerging empirical support for their utility in

the disability context (Lindstrom & Benz, 2002).

IMPLICATIONS FOR CAREER COUNSELING

As noted earlier, traditional career counseling approaches for individuals with

disabilities have relied on matching strategies—where the emphasis was on

matching capacities to job demands. Although there is nothing inherently wrong

with this trait and factor approach, the manner in which practices evolved proved

problematic in terms of assisting individuals with disabilities to secure chosen

jobs. First is the issue described earlier, where vocational evaluations emphasized

deficits, not strengths—a process that tended to severely constrain choice. Sec-

ond, even within a strengths-based assessment approach, various problems have

been noted in the application of standardized tests and instruments for people

with disabilities (Parker & Schaller, 2003), raising questions about their predic-

tive utility with several disabled populations (Anthony & Jansen, 1984; Caston &

Watson, 1990; Jones, 1995). Such problems include nonrepresentative norms, inex-

perienced test takers, inappropriate and/or inadequate modifications to stan-

dardization protocols, and poorly trained examiners (Anastasi, 1976; Parker &

Schaller, 2003).

One result of the challenge to traditional career assessment has been to modify

assessment approaches. These modifications include incorporating more infor-

mal interviews and observational techniques into assessment (Power, 2000), hav-

ing family members or significant others participate in helping the individual

identify interests and skills (Hagner & DiLeo, 1993), and relying more on contex-

tual assessment methods, where observations and ratings occur in a specific

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