Abstract
Recent research on the pathways to quality employment of persons with intellectual disability (ID) highlights the importance of specific skills needed for successfully gaining and maintaining employment, including adaptive skills such as social skills, self-determination and self-advocacy skills, and the finite skills that are relevant for specific occupations. This chapter provides a review of those skills and their relation to employment outcomes and strategies and techniques available for assessment of skills. The chapter also describes approaches to environmental assessment, reflecting the need to identify job opportunities and tailor skill development accordingly. The range of vocational training and job preparation programs that address relevant employment skills is examined, with attention paid to program context and its implications. Quality employment and its changing definition over the past decades are discussed, as well as the policy and program implications for providing opportunities for quality employment for all persons with ID. The chapter ends by looking ahead to the types of employment outcomes for persons with ID that could and should be expected in the twenty-first century.
