Transition Support for Employment of People With Developmental Disabilities in Relation to Their Self-Understanding of Their Work Life: Multivariate Analysis of Data from Employment Assistance Providers

Abstract

The purposes of the present study were to elucidate the impressions of employment assistance providers of the self-understanding of people with developmental disabilities regarding their work life, and to do an analysis of those data from the perspective of career education. Participants, 56 employment assistance providers, used a 5-point scale to evaluate 16 items about the self-understanding of people with developmental disabilities regarding their work life. The main results are as follows: (a) Factor analysis of the data resulted in the extraction of 3 mutually independent factors, which were named 'necessity of alleviating problems,' 'approach conducive to work,' and 'compensatory strategy'. Scales were constructed based on each of these factors; the α coefficients of the scales were relatively high, and internal consistency was demonstrated. Multiple aspects of the self-understanding of people with developmental disabilities were found. The employment assistance providers considered such self-understanding to be important in transition support for employment, (b) Differences in employment support experience were examined in relation to the self-understanding of people with developmental disabilities. When a t-test was used to compare scores for each of the scales between a group with a few years of support experience and a group with many years of support experience, the results revealed a significant difference in 'necessity of alleviating problems' between the groups. Compared to the more experienced employment assistance providers, those with less experience considered it more important that people with developmental disabilities understand the necessity of alleviating difficulties in their work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)