The Post-High School Outcomes of Young Adults with Disabilities up to 8 Years after High School: A Report from the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2). NCSER 2011-3005
Author: Newman, Lynn
Date: 2011-09-00
Type: Numerical/Quantitative Data
Subjects: Postsecondary Education,Employment Level,Disabilities,Mail Surveys,Young Adults,Data Collection,Educational Experience,Educational Legislation,Federal Legislation,Longitudinal Studies,Secondary School Students,Special Education,Interviews,Outcomes of Education,Citizen Participation,Marital Status,Marriage,Friendship,Child Rearing,Independent Living,Participation,Wages,Enrollment,High School Students,Educational Attainment,Interpersonal Competence,Interpersonal Relationship

The National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2) funded by the National Center for Special Education Research at the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, provides a unique source of information to help in developing an understanding of the experiences of secondary school students with disabilities nationally as they go through their early adult years. NLTS2 addresses questions about youth with disabilities in transition by providing information over a 10-year period about a nationally representative sample of secondary school students with disabilities who were 13 to 16 years old and receiving special education services in grade 7 or above, under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in the 2000-01 school year. NLTS2 findings generalize to youth with disabilities nationally and to youth in each of the 12 federal special education disability categories in use for students in the NLTS2 age range. The study was designed to collect data on sample members from multiple sources in five waves, beginning in 2001 and ending in 2009. This document uses information about these former secondary school students to describe the experiences of young adults with disabilities in the postsecondary education, employment, independence, and social domains in their first 8 years out of high school. Much of the information reported in this document comes from young adults with disabilities themselves in the form of responses to either a telephone interview or a self-administered mail survey with a subset of key items from the telephone interview conducted in 2009, as part of NLTS2's fifth and final wave of data collection, referred to as Wave 5. This report is organized to provide information on young adults with disabilities in several key domains, including the following: (1) Postsecondary education enrollment, educational experiences, and completion; (2) Employment status and characteristics of young adults' current or most recent job; (3) Productive engagement in school, work, or preparation for work; (4) Residential independence; the prevalence of marriage and parenting; and aspects of their financial independence; and (5) Social and community involvement, including friendship activities and community participation in both positive and negative ways. Selected findings include: (1) Sixty percent of young adults with disabilities reported having continued on to postsecondary education within 8 years of leaving high school. (2) Ninety-one percent of young adults with disabilities reported having been employed at some time since leaving high school, holding an average of four jobs. (3) Ninety-four percent of young adults with disabilities reported having been engaged in employment, postsecondary education, and/or job training during this post-high school period. (4) Fifty-nine percent of young adults with disabilities had lived independently (on their own or with a spouse, partner, or roommate), and 4 percent had lived semi-independently (primarily in a college dormitory or military housing). (5) The participation rate of young adults with disabilities in any one of three types of social and community involvement activities--lessons or classes outside of school, volunteer or community service activities, and organized school or community groups--was 52 percent, ranging from 20 percent to 39 percent of young adults across the three types of activities. Appended are: (1) NLTS2 Sampling, Data Collection, and Analysis Procedures; and (2) Additional Analysis. (Contains 98 tables, 44 figures and 126 footnotes.) [This paper was written with Renee Cameto, Elidia Contreras, Kate Ferguson, Sarah Greene and Meredith Schwarting.]