Career development for adolescents and young adults with mental retardation

Professional School Counseling, Dec, 2004 by John Wadsworth, Amy Milson, Karen Cocco

In addition to sustaining vocational growth through successive employment opportunities, career development activities may assist students, parents, and educators in identifying and clarifying individual factors that are key components in occupational engagement (Schmidt, 1999). Although intelligence is associated with career maturity and the development of decision making skills, factors other than skills, abilities, and personality play a major role in career development and satisfaction for people with mental retardation (Morris & Levinson, 1995; Pierce et al., 2003). Factors such as interests, social opportunities, emotional rewards, and economic benefits influence career choices (or most adolescents, including those with cognitive limitations (Szymanski, Hershenson, Enright, & Ettinger, 1996). These same factors--interests, social preferences, and emotional rewards--influence the employment choices of adolescents and young adults diagnosed with mental retardation (Enright, 1997; Pierce et al.).

The ASCA National Model (ASCA, 2003) provides a framework for school counselors to help all students to "develop career awareness," "develop employment readiness," "acquire career information," "identify career" goals," "acquire knowledge to achieve career goals," and "apply skills to achieve career goals" (Campbell & Dahir, 1997, pp. 25-27). School-based learning opportunities are particularly important for people with cognitive developmental disabilities who, unlike their peers without cognitive disabilities, may have limited opportunities to participate in social, work, volunteer, and community activities; and thus may have limited exposure to occupational role models (Callahan & Garner, 1997; Sowers et al., 2002). Career development activities within the educational setting may be the best opportunity for a student with mental retardation to explore the world of work before entering private or state-federal vocational rehabilitation service programs for adults that focus primarily on job placement and tenure. Individualized career development curricula can help document that students with severe cognitive impairments and their parents, educators, and advocates have information from which to make meaningful choices about the activities and outcomes of the IEP.

CAREER DEVELOPMENT MODELS

Career development activities for students with mental retardation comprise a process in which the student must be an active and informed participant (Szymanski & Parker, 2003). Career development activities should be an important component of preparing students with mental retardation to enter the world of work (McCrea & Miller, 1999). However, career development activities should not end as employment begins (Reid, Deutsch, Kitchen, & Azanavoorian, 1997). Career education should be a dynamic and lifelong process because people with intellectual disabilities are always changing (Kanchier, 1990). Education and rehabilitation systems, however, have not always applied theories and models of typical career development to people with mental retardation even though students with mental retardation can benefit from many of the same activities as students who do not have a cognitive disability, (Pumpian et al., 1997).