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Competitive Employment for Transition-Aged Youth with Significant Impact from Autism: A Multi-site Randomized Clinical Trial

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Abstract

This study reports the results of a multi-site, parallel block randomized clinical trial to expand the previous findings regarding the implementation of Project SEARCH plus ASD Supports (PS + ASD) on employment outcomes upon graduation from high school. Participants were 156 individuals with significant impact from ASD between the ages of 18–21. There was a significant difference between treatment and control groups with 73.4% of the treatment group acquiring competitive employment at or above minimum wage by 1-year after graduation compared to 17% of the control group for whom data was provided. At 1-year, employed treatment group participants worked an average of 21.2 h per week (SD = 9) for a mean hourly wage of $9.61 per hour (SD = $1.55).

Clinical Trial Registration: clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT03560453.

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Funding

All phases of this study were funded by the Disability and Rehabilitation Research Project (DRRP) grant #90DP005103 from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

    Paul Wehman

  2. Rehabilitation Research and Training Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

    Paul Wehman, Carol Schall, Jennifer McDonough, Alissa Brooke, Whitney Ham, Holly Whittenburg, Valerie Brooke & Lauren Avellone

  3. School of Education, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

    Carol Schall, Jennifer McDonough, Alissa Brooke, Whitney Ham, Holly Whittenburg, Valerie Brooke & Lauren Avellone

  4. Department of Biostatistics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, USA

    Adam Sima

  5. Division of Disability Services, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA

    Erin Riehle

  6. School of Education, VCU Autism Center for Excellence, Virginia Commonwealth University, Box 842011, Richmond, VA, 23284-2011, USA

    Paul Wehman, Carol Schall, Alissa Brooke, Whitney Ham, Valerie Brooke & Lauren Avellone

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  1. Paul Wehman
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Correspondence to Carol Schall.

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Conflict of interest

The authors of this paper declare no conflicts of interest in the completion of the study or the preparation of this manuscript.

Financial Disclosure

All authors have indicated that they have no financial relationships relevant to disclose.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in this study involved human participants and were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional review boards of the University and the State Department of Vocational Rehabilitation with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. In addition, the procedures implemented were reviewed by the research committees of all participating school districts. All participants provided informed consent and, when appropriate, assent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Wehman, P., Schall, C., McDonough, J. et al. Competitive Employment for Transition-Aged Youth with Significant Impact from Autism: A Multi-site Randomized Clinical Trial. J Autism Dev Disord 50, 1882–1897 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-03940-2

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