The handicapped school leaver and the transition to work

Handicapped young people are disadvantaged in the search for work, and many of the most severely handicapped from special schools face particularly difficult problems in adjusting to the realities of the labour market. Careers advisers also face some acute difficulties in their interactions with handicapped young people. The relevant results of a recent national investigation into the employment experience of handicapped school leavers are examined, including information about careers advice and sources of information about jobs. It is argued that, despite the existence of careers officers who specialise in work with handicapped young people, careers guidance for this group is under-developed both inside and outside schools.     

What are careers officers thinking of? How information cues are selected and used in careers interviews

This paper explores the information-seeking practices of careers officers during careers interviews. Research in decision-making is used to establish hypotheses, with a focus on findings in the fields of heuristics, cognitive mapping and medical diagnostics. Sensitive areas for careers guidance providers in this research field are outlined. A small-scale research project is described, which indicated support for several of the hypotheses. A model is suggested of how careers officers may elicit and use information cues in order to mentally match clients' post-16 choices against perceived opportunities. The implications for careers officer practice and careers service fundholders are discussed.     

Actual and ideal work tasks of careers officers

Actual and ideal functions of careers officers as seen by professional workers in the Youth Employment Service and by students in training were investigated. An instrument - based on an American counsellor task inventory and subsequently named the Careers Officers Task Inventory (COTI) - was administered by mail to a nationally representative total sample, consisting of a random sample of careers officers (stratified by geographical region and office size), all careers officers with special responsibilities for the handicapped, and the total intake of student careers officers in Britain at the time of the survey. Negligible disparity was found between perceptions of the job as it is and as it should be. Differences between sub-samples included differing perceptions of the role of counselling. Some contrasts with parallel American findings are indicated, and questions for future research are raised.     

Under Pressure to Change: The Professional Identity of Careers Officers

The professional identity of careers officers is no longer secure. Their role as independent providers of vocational guidance has been challenged and they have been urged to accord employers and placement a higher priority in their work. The resistance to such proposed changes encountered during a study of careers officers in Midtown appeared to be motivated more by a genuine concern for vulnerable clients than simple professional inertia or calculated self-interest. Any imposition of change could prove counter-productive and provoke a serious dislocation in the provision of vocational guidance.     

Improving the quality of careers guidance: Towards an understanding of the development of personal models

The process by which careers officers develop personal models of guidance through the interaction of theoretical knowledge with their experiences of training and practice is examined. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 careers officers. Questions were asked about the training and development of careers officers in the practice of careers guidance and counselling with young people. The responses are considered in relation to theories of careers choice, careers counselling and guidance, models of counselling, and the supervisory role in the development of individual practice. Some recommendations are made for improvements to training and supervision for careers guidance.     

Competing schools or stylistic variation in careers guidance interviewing

We know very little about how careers officers conduct careers guidance interviews. Research was carried out to discover how careers officers view interviewing, the factors that lead them to vary their interview style, and how they modify their approach with experience. There was little evidence that officers vary their style by using radically opposed models in different circumstances. Instead, variations in approach are best regarded as different combinations of ideas and techniques. Careers officers adapted their interview styles largely in response to the perceived needs of clients. Initial training course attended appeared to have a limited but enduring effect on interview style, but there was also evidence that with experience careers officers develop more confidence, coherence and flexibility. Careers officers judged their interviews to be most effective when they were able to establish a rapport with the client, to spend time drawing up a contract, to challenge clients in a sensitive way, and to structure the interview appropriately.     

Mental Handicap and Citizenship

ABSTRACT Mentally handicapped people have been taken in philosophical work as an obvious exception to the canons which are applied to other, 'rational'individuals. This paper argues that mentally handicapped people should be accorded the same rights as others. If there are human rights, then mentally handicapped people are entitled to them as humans; and if there are rights which apply in general to citizens, the same rights apply equally to mentally handicapped people. The argument for the inclusion of mentally handicapped people as citizens is first, that there is a presumption of inclusion: if citizenship is accorded to all other individuals, there is no reason why citizenship should not be accorded to mentally handicapped people on the same basis as others. Second, mentally handicapped people cannot successfully be excluded without effectively challenging the presumption of inclusion applied to other groups. Third, and perhaps most important, there are positive reasons why mentally handicapped people, as a particularly vulnerable group, need to have rights to protect them against particular abuses.     

Is guidance an applied science?: The role of theory in the careers guidance interview

Some of the findings of a study investigating careers officers' use of theoretical models in the careers guidance interview are discussed. Data were collected through visits to institutions offering Diploma in Careers Guidance courses, a large-scale questionnaire survey of careers officers, and semi-structured interviews and group discussions. There was evidence that in initial training, theory is used to support, rather than determine, the development of skills. Results also suggested that practising careers officers are familiar with a fairly wide range of theories, although in their interviewing they tend to apply broad principles of theory, rather than specific elements. Careers officers who trained some time ago were less familiar with theories than were those who trained more recently, and there was no support for the hypothesis that long service leads to a greater recognition of the relevance of theories generally. Familiarity with guidance and counselling theories appears to be more influential than knowledge of career theories on the way careers officers think about interviewing. Overall, the findings cast doubt on the view that careers guidance is an applied science.     

Training severely and profoundly mentally handicapped nocturnal enuretics

The problem of nocturnal enuresis in the institutionalized mentally handicapped is a major one which reduces independence in many handicapped adults and has major implications for hospital resources. Much work, which has looked at initial success rates, relapse rates, and factors involved in these, has been carried out with non-handicapped populations. However, there have been remarkably few such studies with the mentally handicapped. A study is reported in which five severely and profoundly mentally handicapped adolescents or young adults were successfully trained over periods ranging from 18 to 92 weeks. Several interesting features of the data are discussed.     

Acquisition and performance difference between normal and mentally handicapped adults on a complex assembly task

Several single studies concerned with work training with the mentally handicapped have been reported in the literature (Bitter & Bolanovich, 1966; Huddle, 1967; Gold, 1969; Screven, Straka & Lafond, 1971). Most have been concerned with issues of acquisition and motivation to perform. No studies have been reported which focus on the evaluation of different techniques of training or which assess rate of acquisition against that of non-handicapped controls. The aim of this experiment is twofold. It uses a complex task, analysed by MTM-2, to enable comparison between the performances of mentally handicapped adults and adults from a 'normal' population, in the acquisition of new work skills. Various strategies of training were compared and the increase in the rate and quality of performance following acquisition was measured for both, in terms of speed and accuracy of production. Results add further support for the notion that the potential of mentally handicapped individuals is commonly underestimated. It is hoped that the findings provide a basis from which further experiments can be developed and evaluated.     

L’insertion professionnelle des travailleurs handicapés en France : principes et réalités

The principle underlying positive discrimination – or “affirmative action” as the phrase went in the US, essentially targeting “racial” discrimination – consists in giving more to those who have less, and defines how we understand the ways handicapped persons can get a job. This translates into policies which, despite being updated many times since their first implementation between the two world wars, have remained true to their initial, protective purpose. Over those past decades, their target groups have grown more and more diverse, but identifying them has always been the work of social and medical organisations where the State and local communities are uniting forces. Simultaneously, the professional insertion of the physically or mentally challenged has been made possible through three actions. One was to clearly define the protected segment of the most handicapped to prevent any doubt on status, while allowing the segment to grow. Another was to multiply placement organisations, such as the Cap-Emploi network, dedicated to rationalizing their own procedures for better performance while improving how they can help the handicapped to better access the ordinary job market. Yet another was to implement innovative instruments such as the AGEPFIPH. Finally we will insist on how employers are reluctant to hire individuals with limited employability. In other words this article proposes to evaluate collective objectives, notably public policies as perceived through the threefold aspect of identification-insertion-reception of the handicapped. Exploring the factors of the all-too-frequent low employment rate of handicapped workers, this article demonstrates how the policy instruments, despite their increasing number, fail to address their own negative impacts, such as the segmentation and substitution of targeted groups. It therefore questions the various logical distortions assumed by the instruments available when confronted with population limits and recipients’ demands. It therefore examines the issues regarding the status and collective management of this unskilled labor force in a context of critically changing working conditions in jobs that remain a very remote perspective.     

Examining foster care: A viable solution for placement of handicapped children?

Foster care for handicapped children has become a frequently used and even more frequently criticized procedure. Traditional methods of foster placement have resulted in a number of negative outcomes, especially for the placed children. Based on a review of some recent innovative foster care programs, this paper has isolated a number of options for the restructuring of the entire foster care delivery system. These options include: rigorous client evaluation, use of selection and training criteria for foster parents, matching of client needs to caregiver abilities in making placement decisions, and ongoing professional support and supervision after placement. Systematic consideration of these issues may help make foster care a more viable solution to the growing problem of home placement for handicapped children.     

视觉障碍儿童人格特征的比较研究

以《缺陷儿童人格诊断量表》为工具对视觉障碍儿童进行人格评定,并将其测验分数与先前有关其他特殊儿童和正常儿童的同一量表测验结果加以比较。比较结果表明．视觉障碍儿童与正常儿童、智力落后儿童的人格特性有明显差异,而与听觉障碍儿童的人格差异相对要小一些。随年龄、障碍程度的不同．视觉障碍儿童的人格特性也有明显差异。     

Police perspectives on responding to mentally ill people in crisis: perceptions of program effectiveness

In this study, we sampled sworn police officers from three law enforcement agencies (n=452), each of which had different system responses to mentally ill people in crisis. One department relies on field assistance from a mobile mental health crisis team, a second has a team of officers specially trained in crisis intervention and management of mentally ill people in crisis, and a third has a team of in-house social workers to assist in responding to calls. Calls involving mentally ill people in crisis appear to be frequent and are perceived by most of the officers to pose a significant problem for the department; however, most officers reported feeling well prepared to handle these calls. Generally, officers from the jurisdiction with a specialized team of officers rated their program as being highly effective in meeting the needs of mentally ill people in crisis, keeping mentally ill people out of jail, minimizing the amount of time officers spend on these calls, and maintaining community safety. Officers from departments relying on a mobile crisis unit (MCU) and on police-based social workers both rated their programs as being moderately effective on each of these dimensions except for minimizing officer time on these calls where the MCU had significantly lower ratings. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

ATTITUDES INFLUENCING EMPLOYMENT OF THE HANDICAPPED

This study investigates the effect of existing attitudes on employment practices of two groups of Texas employers, the first employing visually handicapped persons, and the second employing physically handicapped persons. After personal interviews, all 24 participants were administered the Survey of Interpersonal Values (SIV) and the Action, Cognition, and Emotion Test (ACET). Among conclusions drawn from the findings were that employers of the visually handicapped indicate their willingness to hire persons with physical disabilities, that employers who show willingness to employ handicapped personnel at the professional level tend to value leadership traits in employees, that employers may not carry through with actual employment of the handicapped even though they communicate interest in and tolerance for these individuals, that employers' positive attitudes appear to relate significantly to positive experiences with handicapped workers, and that the larger the population center the more receptive the attitudes of employers toward the handicapped.     

Using the ADI-R to diagnose autism in preschool children

The use of an investigator-based interview (Autism Diagnostic Interview—Revised; ADI-R) in the diagnosis of 51 autistic and 43 nonautistic mentally handicapped preschool children of equivalent mental and chronological age is described. Significant differences occurred between the groups on every diagnostic subdomain from the DSM-IV/ICD-10 draft criteria, except specific aspects of stereotyped language, still relatively rare in these young children. All but one of the 51 children judged to be autistic by clinical observation and only two of the 30 nonautistic mentally handicapped children with mental ages of 18 months or higher met criteria for autism on an algorithm to DSM-IV/ICD-10 draft criteria. However, discrimination using domain totals between autistic and the 13 nonautistic, nonverbal mentally handicapped children with mental ages under 18 months was poor. Quality of social overtures to adults and peers, play, and unusual sensory behaviors and mannerisms continued to differentiate these two groups. The relevance of these findings to the diagnosis of autism in preschool children is discussed.     

Measuring the quality of residential care

Administrative personnel require objective, reliable and valid information in order to monitor the effects of allocating resources to different components of the service that they are providing. The initial problem is to define and measure the dependent variable—the ‘quality of care’ —against which the effects of changing various independent variables can be evaluated. The paper describes an attempt to use the operant conditioning model as a basis for constructing such a measure of the quality of care provided in residential settings for severely mentally handicapped people. The rationale for adopting this model is described, against a background of other studies in which the same problem has been addressed. The hypothesis, the tasks generated, and the methodological problems encountered, are outlined and discussed.

A subsequent paper will present the results obtained when using the method to measure the quality of care, so defined, in two residential units for severely mentally handicapped children.     

A Comparison of Adaptive Behavior Ratings: Revised Vineland and AAMD ABS-SE

Although the assessment of adaptive behavior is a mandated component of many school assessments, concerns have been raised about the measurement of the construct and related professional practices. Estimates of adaptive behavior have been shown sometimes to vary by instruments and raters and therefore may influence placement decisions in unknown ways. This study examined the agreement among teachers and parents on the revised Vineland and the AAMD Adaptive Behavior Scale-School Edition for a sample of developmentally handicapped children. A sample of learning disabled children was also included in order to explore the effects of a restricted range on the correlations. Also, the potential effects of estimates of adaptive behavior on placement decisions were analyzed. The results suggest that serious discrepancies could occur that would directly affect placement decisions.     

Display vs. memory search for digits and faces among mentally handicapped and MA-matched non-handicapped youngsters

This experiment was designed to explore possible explanations for handicapped individuals' characteristically poor performance on memory scanning tasks. Independent variables included group (mentally handicapped vs. non-handicapped), type of search (display vs. memory), type of stimuli (digits vs. pictures of unfamiliar boys' faces), and load (2, 3, or 4 items to be searched). Results indicated that handicapped and non-handicapped groups did not differ when searching displays but did when searching memory, which suggested that the handicapped group's most significant impairment was specific to some aspect of memory search. Handicapped youngsters were also hindered by increasing loads more than control youngsters were. This result as well as impairment in memory search may have been due to handicapped youngsters' relatively short visual spans. The groups did not differ in their response to the two types of stimuli, faces and digits. Facial search was a considerably more demanding task than digit search for handicapped and normal children.     

Reaction times, using fine and gross motor movements of moderately and severely mentally handicapped adults to auditory and visual stimuli

This experiment investigated the reaction times, when using fine and gross motor movements, of 24 moderately and severely mentally handicapped adults to light and sound stimuli. Unlike results of prior studies of normal and mildly mentally handicapped subjects, there were no significant differences among variables.