Attitudes and Beliefs of Job Development Professionals Toward Employers

Job development and placement professionals assist people with disabilities to secure, maintain, and advance in employment and thus have an important role in achieving quality employment outcomes for job seekers they represent. This research, conducted in NJ and MD, describes findings related to the attitudes and beliefs of job development professionals toard employers and the employment process

Job Developer Types, Placement Practices and Outcomes Technical Report

Despite numerous employment initiatives, people with disabilities are significantly more likely to experience unemployment and consequently, reduced economic and social well-being and a dminished quality of life than their non disabled peers. In a recent national survey of employers, less than 14% of companies indicated that they actively recruit jobseekers with disabilities. Thus, the role of the job development professional is pivotal to helping job seekers with disabilities to find, secure and maintain employment. This research report examined the attitudes and beliefs of job development processionals articulated in a previous technical report by TransCen, Inc. and looked to further explore the relationship between the types, other personal characteristics and placement outcomes of the various job developer types

Predictors of Supported Employment for Transitioning Youth with Developmental Disabilities

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 requires school systems to plan systematically for the transition from school to post-secondary education and/or employment and include measurable post-school goals in students' IEPs. Schools are required to coordinate activities, such as work experiences, to assist students in meeting their post-school goals. In addition, IDEA 2004 outlines a requirement for states to evaluate their performance on priority indicators including the percent of youth who had IEPs who are working in the community within the first year after exiting school (Indicator 14, IDEA 2004). Although youth with developmental disabilities (DD) typically stay in school longer than their peers and often receive costly long-term funded supports as adults, these students continue to transition to sheltered post-school employment rather than supported employment (paid work in the community). Studies examining the employment outcomes for youth with disabilities and predictors for favorable post-school outcomes proliferate in the field yet little is known about the types of employment outcomes for transitioning youth with developmental disabilities who receive long-term funded supports from community rehabilitation provider agencies (CRPs) or the variables that best predict supported employment outcomes. In this study, CRP staff members were asked to complete a survey on 560 individuals who received state DD funded supports from one of 81 CRPs across one Mid-Atlantic state. The final sample included 338 subjects (60.4% response rate) from 57 CRPs. Only 14.2% of the transitioning youth with DD were in individual supported employment positions in the community. Over one-third of the sample (36.9%) was in other supported work (e.g. enclaves, mobile crews) through a CRP and 57.1% were engaged in unpaid/sheltered or non-work activities at the CRP. Using multinomial logistic regression, five variables were identified as salient predictors of supported employment: Family expressed preference for supported employment, paid work experience during secondary school years, self-management skills, community mobility skills, and race/ethnicity. The findings are particularly meaningful because this is the first study to examine predictor variables that are relevant for transitioning youth with DD, such as typical secondary school experiences (e.g. post-secondary program participation, unpaid work experience) and the outcome variable reflects the spectrum of employment outcomes for individuals receiving funded supports from CRPs

Do States Require Direct-Service Transition Professionals to Have Specialized Knowledge and Skills?

Presented at the CEC Division on Career Development and Transition (DCDT) Annual Conference, Milwaukee, WI

Å by på seg selv : Hvilken betydning vektlegger miljøterapeuter som jobber med ungdom i psykiatri sine personlige erfaringer i utøvelse av miljøterapi?

Det denne studien viser er at informantene ser betydningen av å bruke personlige erfaringer som viktig og betydningsfullt for å komme i relasjon til ungdommene. Funnene viser også at flere informanter har et tydelig skille mellom privat og personlig, men uten at de tydeliggjør dette skillet. Slik jeg oppfatter det betyr dette at skillet mellom privat og personlig er noe som bør undersøkes i nye studier, spesielt fordi det kommer frem i studiens funn at det å bruke personlige erfaringer er essensielt for å bygge en god relasjon som er grunnleggende for miljøterapi. Det savnes brukererfaringer fra ungdommene selv om hva de ser på som viktig og nyttig av egenskaper en miljøterapeut bør ha i en god miljøterapeutisk relasjon. Det er derfor gode grunner til å søke mer kunnskap om hva som er de virksomme kvaliteter ved miljøterapeutene i den terapeutiske relasjon sett ut fra ungdommenes eget perspektiv

Multilingualism and verbal short-term/working memory: Evidence from academics.

To date, the evidence regarding the effect of bilingualism/multilingualism on short-term memory (STM) and working memory (WM) capacity is inconclusive. This study investigates whether multilingualism has a positive effect on the verbal STM and WM capacity of neuro typical middle-aged and older individuals. Eighty-two L1-Norwegian sequential bilingual/ multilingual academics were tested with tasks measuring verbal STM/WM capacity. Degree of bilingualism/multilingualism for each participant was estimated based on a comprehensive questionnaire. Different measures of bilingualism/multilingualism were used. Data on potentially influencing non-linguistic factors were also collected. Correlation and regression analyses showed that multilingualism impacts both verbal STM and verbal WM. All analyses showed that number of known foreign languages was the strongest predictor of verbal STM and WM capacity. The results are discussed considering recent studies on the impact of bilingualism on STM/WM and on recent proposals regarding the mechanism underlying so-called bilingual advantage.publishedVersio

The State of Personnel Preparation: Secondary Transition

Presentation at the CEC Division on Career Development and Transition (DCDT) Annual Conference

The influence of climatic conditions on the transmission dynamics of the 2009 A/H1N1 influenza pandemic in Chile

BACKGROUND: The role of demographic factors, climatic conditions, school cycles, and connectivity patterns in shaping the spatio-temporal dynamics of pandemic influenza is not clearly understood. Here we analyzed the spatial, age and temporal evolution of the 2009 A/H1N1 influenza pandemic in Chile, a southern hemisphere country covering a long and narrow strip comprising latitudes 17°S to 56°S. METHODS: We analyzed the dissemination patterns of the 2009 A/H1N1 pandemic across 15 regions of Chile based on daily hospitalizations for severe acute respiratory disease and laboratory confirmed A/H1N1 influenza infection from 01-May to 31-December, 2009. We explored the association between timing of pandemic onset and peak pandemic activity and several geographical and demographic indicators, school vacations, climatic factors, and international passengers. We also estimated the reproduction number (R) based on the growth rate of the exponential pandemic phase by date of symptoms onset, estimated using maximum likelihood methods. RESULTS: While earlier pandemic onset was associated with larger population size, there was no association with connectivity, demographic, school or climatic factors. In contrast, there was a latitudinal gradient in peak pandemic timing, representing a 16-39-day lag in disease activity from the southern regions relative to the northernmost region (P < 0.001). Geographical differences in latitude of Chilean regions, maximum temperature and specific humidity explained 68.5% of the variability in peak timing (P = 0.01). In addition, there was a decreasing gradient in reproduction number from south to north Chile (P < 0.0001). The regional mean R estimates were 1.6-2.0, 1.3-1.5, and 1.2-1.3 for southern, central and northern regions, respectively, which were not affected by the winter vacation period. CONCLUSIONS: There was a lag in the period of most intense 2009 pandemic influenza activity following a South to North traveling pattern across regions of Chile, significantly associated with geographical differences in minimum temperature and specific humidity. The latitudinal gradient in timing of pandemic activity was accompanied by a gradient in reproduction number (P < 0.0001). Intensified surveillance strategies in colder and drier southern regions could lead to earlier detection of pandemic influenza viruses and improved control outcomes

Invasive Pneumococcal Pneumonia and Respiratory Virus Co-infections

Each year, especially in the winter, many get sick and some die of invasive pneumococcal pneumonia. Does this type of pneumonia increase in the winter because people are in closer contact indoors?  Or are people more susceptible to this bacterial disease after having had a seasonal respiratory virus infection?  A season-by-season analysis found an association between pneumococcal pneumonia and two viruses (influenza and respiratory syncytial virus). The association varied by season and was strongest when the predominant influenza virus subtype was H3N2. Vaccination against influenza and RSV should also help protect against pneumococcal pneumonia