Ashworth, Maria C;
Heasman, Brett;
Crane, Laura;
Remington, Anna;
(2025)
Tracking the long-term outcomes of a supported employment internship programme for autistic adults without a learning disability.
Neurodiversity
, 3
pp. 1-30.
10.1177/27546330241311472.
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Abstract
Supported employment initiatives with work experience (e.g. internships) can increase employment rates for autistic people. However, such initiatives (a) are often not evidence-based, (b) focus on quantitative outcomes such as employment rates and (c) examine group-level changes without considering individual variability. Considering the effects that (un)employment can have on autistic people's well-being, it is important to examine the wider impact of supported employment initiatives. This study evaluated the long-term employment and wider outcomes of autistic adults who engaged with a supported employment internship initiative at group and individual levels. Autistic adults without a learning disability ( N = 27, ‘interns’; Mage = 23.3) involved in internships across seven organisations, participated in the study. Interns reported on (a) employment-related characteristics, (b) daily living skills, (c) general self-efficacy, (d) quality of life and (e) mental health pre-internship at six and 12–24 months post-internship. The overall employment rate increased from 25.93% to 55.56% from pre- to 12–24 months post-internship, and income and number of hours worked also increased. There were improvements in daily living skills, but other wider outcome measures did not change significantly at a group level, despite individual variability. This evidence has important implications for supporting long-term outcomes for autistic people.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Tracking the long-term outcomes of a supported employment internship programme for autistic adults without a learning disability |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1177/27546330241311472 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1177/27546330241311472 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/ open-access-at-sage). |
| Keywords: | Employment, autistic adults, transition, supported employment, work experience |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Psychology and Human Development |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10215309 |
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