Improving Post-High School Outcomes for Transition-Age Students with Disabilities: An Evidence Review. NCEE 2013-4011
Author: Cobb, R. Brian
Date: 2013-08-00
Type: Information Analyses
Subjects: Disabilities,Transitional Programs,Postsecondary Education,Access to Education,Job Skills,Program Effectiveness,Mental Retardation,Comparative Analysis,Employment Level,High School Students,Job Training,Equal Opportunities (Jobs),Effect Size,Inclusion,Teaching Methods,Independent Living,Computer Uses in Education,Educational Technology,Prompting,Career Education,Technical Education,Work Experience Programs,Student Employment,Daily Living Skills,Agency Cooperation,Parent Participation,Career Awareness,School Community Programs,Student Characteristics,Intervention,Research Methodology,Federal Legislation,Educational Legislation,Meta Analysis

Nearly four decades have passed since the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) ensured access to public education for students with disabilities in the United States. During the years following its introduction, there was a growing recognition that helping students, especially students with disabilities, in their transitions from secondary school to post-high school environments is crucial to them leading productive and fulfilling lives as adults. Several reauthorizations of IDEA have emphasized the importance of transition planning in providing support for students with disabilities to obtain employment, pursue postsecondary education and training, and live more independently. Despite the efforts of policymakers and practitioners, a gap in post-high school outcomes remains between students with disabilities and other students. Newman et al. (2011) reported that 60 percent of students with disabilities had ever taken a class from a postsecondary school within eight years of leaving high school, lower than the overall rate of 67 percent for same-age young adults in the general population. Students with disabilities were also less likely to be living independently as adults (45 percent versus 59 percent), be married (13 percent versus 19 percent), have a checking account (59 percent versus 74 percent), or have a credit card (41 percent versus 61 percent). Students with disabilities who had been out of high school for as many as eight years had lower rates of employment than same-age individuals in the general population, although employment differences were statistically significant only for students with more severe types of disabilities. To identify effective strategies for improving post-high school outcomes, this report reviews the research literature on programs (strategies, interventions, or sets of services) designed to help students with disabilities make transitions. It deviates in several ways from previous evidence reviews (for example, Cobb and Alwell 2009; Test et al. 2009): (1) It updates earlier reviews by including studies publicly released between April 2008 and June 2011; (2) It reviews studies using the standards and process developed by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) What Works Clearinghouse (WWC); and (3) It focuses on direct measures of students' post-high school outcomes as evidence of the program's effectiveness. The following appendixes are included: (1) Evidence review protocol; (2) Dispositions for studies that do not meet WWC standards; (3) Rating criteria for studies and programs; (4) Alignment of Test, Fowler, Kohler, and Kortering (2010) taxonomy to program categories in this review; (5) Samples, interventions, settings, and outcomes for individual studies; (6) Description of group design study findings; (7) Narrative description of group design study findings for studies that meet WWC standards with reservations and exploratory studies; and (8) Glossary. (Contains 30 footnotes, 3 figures, and 32 tables.) [This report was written with Abigail Veliquette, Helen Holmquist-Johnson, Morgen Alwell, Rebecca Orsi, Keri Batchelder, Laura Sample McMeeking, Robert Bernard, Jun Wang, Paul Hernandez, and Andrea Weinberg.]