Brief Report: The Vocational and Educational Activities of Transition-Aged Autistic Youth With Low IQ.
Carly Moser, Ryan Adams, Shuting Zheng and 2 others
PMID 41024208WHAT IT FOUND
Among 91 autistic youth with low IQ who had exited high school, 32 had no vocational or educational activity and 17 had minimal activity; only 14 worked in community jobs.
Key findings
01Thirty-two youth (35%) had no vocational or educational activity, and 17 youth (19%) participated for 10 hours or less per week.
02Forty-two youth (46%) were regularly involved, including 24 in sheltered vocational activities, and 14 youth (15%) were employed in the community.
03Youth who were involved had higher family incomes, higher daily living skills, and lower rates of borderline-to-clinical internalising and externalising behaviours than youth who were not involved. Involvement was not related to age, gender, race, ethnicity, living with caregiver, or caregiver age.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The study included 91 caregivers of autistic youth, which is small for describing vocational and educational participation. IQ was not measured directly in this study and came from registry data or caregiver report, so the sample may not have uniform IQ definitions. The data were cross-sectional, so the study cannot show whether daily living skills or behaviour affect participation or whether participation affects them. Information came from caregivers, not the autistic youth themselves. The sample had limited racial and ethnic diversity. Data were collected after the COVID-19 pandemic, and closures may have affected some opportunities, but engagement did not differ by survey year in this sample. It is unclear whether the low participation rates are specific to autistic youth with low IQ compared with youth with low IQ without autism.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The study was funded by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences and the FAR Fund.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the association between higher daily living skills and vocational or educational participation as proof that improving daily living skills will increase participation. The study did not test an intervention and was cross-sectional, so it could not show which way the association runs.
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