What Follow-Up Studies Say About Postschool Life for Young Men and Women with Learning Disabilities

Abstract

Follow-up studies examining the outcomes for children and youth with learning disabilities who attended special education have appeared in the literature for decades. As American society becomes more technologically advanced and competitive, postsecondary school opportunities and subsequent employment choices that are meaningful and provide a livable wage teeter out of the reach of young people with learning disabilities. Follow-up study investigators seek to understand how to better prepare youth to meet these challenges by studying their long-term outcomes. The authors review data from 13 frequently referenced follow-up studies regarding postschool outcomes, postsecondary education, and employment, with attention to gender differences, for youth with learning disabilities who were served by and graduated from special education programs nationwide. They take a critical look at contradictions in the findings and discuss five methodological issues that seem to influence the conduct and interpretation of follow-up studies: aggregating data across disability categories; combining data on graduates who have been out of school for unequal periods of time; ignoring the issues of missing data, participant attrition, and incomplete data sets; combining data from different informants; and using nonequivalent databases to make comparisons to a population with no disabilities. The authors provide recommendations for conducting follow-up research on the long-term quality of life of children and youth with disabilities and their families.

Educational Opportunity, Post-School Life and CBR: A Multisectoral Approach in Rural Sri Lanka

“…In the western world, post-school life of people with disability appears to be well-documented, although research might face difficulties to measure the outcomes due to complex variables (Levine and Nourse, 1998). Bouck's (2014) longitudinal study, for instance, explores the post-school outcomes of students with intellectual disabilities in the United States.…”

Reading comprehension, word reading and spelling as predictors of school achievement and choice of secondary education

“…However, many of these conflicting findings can be explained by either the definition of these problems as one type of learning disability used in the studies or by the particular socio-cultural bias in the samples (Levine & Nourse, 1998). In fact, many studies that do not find reading and spelling difficulties to have negative educational consequences are based on clinical samples drawing their subjects mainly from the higher end of the social scale.…”

L’ajustement situationnel et personnel des jeunes adultes émergents ayant présenté des problèmes de comportement extériorisés au secondaire

“…D'une part, les jeunes à problèmes de comportement au secondaire sont moins nombreux à poursuivre une formation postsecondaire, ou à occuper un emploi après le secondaire. D'autre part, ils vivent plus fréquemment chez leurs parents et aux dépens de ces derniers (Armstrong, Dedrick et Greebaum, 2003 ;Blackorby et Wagner, 1996 ;Levine et Nourse, 1998 ;Sitlington et collab., 1992).…”

“…En effet, selon certaines recherches (Armstrong, Dedrick et Greebaum, 2003 ;Blackorby et Wagner, 1996 ;Levine et Nourse, 1998 ;Sitlington et collab., 1992), on constate une persistance et une aggravation des problèmes, alors que selon d'autres, des changements et des points tournants apparaissent (Jahnukainen, 1998 ;Laub, Nagin et Sampson, 1998 ;Lichtenstein, 1993 ;Scanlon et Mellard, 2002 ;Schulenberg et collab., 2004a). Or, la taille restreinte des échantillons, l'absence de comparaison en fonction du genre, ainsi que les études portant uniquement sur les jeunes décrocheurs limitent les connaissances sur les jeunes ayant affiché des problèmes extériorisés en milieu scolaire lors de la transition à la vie adulte (Levine et Nourse, 1998). En consé-quence, les suivis à l'âge adulte considèrent souvent toutes les catégories de problématiques (problèmes d'apprentissage, problèmes de comportement, etc.)…”