Choice‐Making in Vocational Activities Planning: Recommendations from Job Coaches

Abstract

Choice in the job seeking process may lead to increased satisfaction with the chosen job, and improve attention, performance, and motivation. Consequently, providing opportunities to express choices and interests while planning vocational activities is a key factor in achieving employment outcomes. Despite their commitment to promoting choice‐making, service providers encounter important barriers to understanding the vocational interests of persons with intellectual disabilities who may have difficulty expressing their choices verbally. Methods of recording choices expressed through nonverbal means of communication are therefore needed. Such a method was designed and field‐tested. Interviews were conducted with participating job coaches to assess its practical value and provide recommendations pertinent to its implementation and dissemination. This step is crucial to the knowledge‐to‐action process since it tailors research findings to make them meaningful to daily practice. The authors present results relevant to improving choice‐making opportunities in the job seeking and planning process of persons with intellectual disabilities. The results demonstrate the need for training to enable support staff to embed choice‐making opportunities in the daily life of persons with intellectual disabilities.

Aligning with the flow of control: A grounded theory study of choice and autonomy in decision-making practices of people with intellectual disabilities

“…This theory illustrates a spectrum of autonomy explicating complexities and intricacies of decision-making support as reported by individuals with varying needs, abilities and support networks. Research has been undertaken on measuring choice availed by people with intellectual disabilities (Houseworth et al, 2018 ) and understanding components of choice-making (Agran et al, 2010 ; Cobigo et al, 2010 ; Donelly et al, 2010 ; McCarthy, 2010 ; McConkey & Collins, 2010 ; Wiltz & Kalnins, 2008 ). Paradigm shifts in service provision such as personalization (Williams & Porter, 2017 ), self-directed support (Bogenschutz et al, 2019 ) and supported decision-making (Bigby et al, 2019 ; Carey & Ryan, 2019 ; Curryer et al, 2019 ; Gore, 2008 ; Shogren et al, 2017 ; Watson, 2016 ) provide guidance so that legal and valued entitlements such as autonomy are implemented with and for service users.…”

Effects of Vocational Training on a Group of People with Intellectual Disabilities

“…For this purpose, we carried out an intervention study with longitudinal design of three stages: pretraining (T 1 ), posttraining (T 2 ), and follow-up after 1 year in employment (T 3 ). Changes across the stages indicates that vocational training sought to develop activities, taking into consideration the initial evaluation of potential needs, personal interests, and expectations regarding the professional future of the group being researched; similarly, to other programs that assist people with ID (Cobigo, Lachapelle, & Morin, 2010;Moreno, 2012).…”

The role of task preference in the effectiveness of response interruption and redirection

“…Instructors presented each task (with programmed visual stimuli if appropriate) to the participant with a vocal-verbal instruction (e.g., "It's time to do counting") and had the participant engage with the task briefly (15-20 s) before the paired-choice preference assessment. Instructors then presented associated materials or visual stimuli for each work task in pairs (e.g., Cobigo et al, 2009). Each task was presented with every other work task once per session, resulting in 10 pairs for Amy and Elliott and 15 pairs for Ava and Shane.…”

“…If RIRD functions as a punisher, it may be beneficial to systematically assess tasks in terms of preference. Some researchers have investigated methods of assessing preference for tasks for individuals with ASD and other developmental or intellectual disabilities (e.g., Cobigo et al, 2009;Reid et al, 2007;Reyer & Sturmey, 2006). For example, Reid et al (2007) proposed a workpreference assessment protocol that consisted of staff interviews, a multitask-preference assessment (similar to DeLeon & Iwata, 1996), and a progression to a pairedtask assessment (similar to Fisher et al, 1992, if needed).…”

“…Their results showed that the multitask-preference assessment identified preferred tasks for seven of 12 participants and the paired-task assessment identified preferred tasks for four of the five remaining participants. When task materials cannot be presented, other formats such as picture representations (e.g., Cobigo et al, 2009;Reyer & Sturmey, 2006), spoken task choices (e.g., Reyer & Sturmey, 2006), and videos of the task (e.g., Morgan & Horrocks, 2011) have been evaluated. However, the extent to which the results of these assessments reliably predict reinforcers when using arbitrary stimuli is dependent on a number of factors, including participants' skill sets (Morris & Vollmer, 2020;Reyer & Sturmey, 2006).…”