Award: Second Place for Nashman Center Community Engaged Research
Project: Making Work Work: Improving Employment Outcomes for Autistic Adults
Adam Berman, an autistic man, noticed that available research on autistic adults does not adequately collect the voices of other autistic adults when discussing satisfactory employment outcomes. Berman explored beyond the typical terms of wages and hours worked, which are important factors of employment quality but they do not grasp what satisfactory employment is to autistic adults.
With authentic, purposeful research, he made sure to include the opinions of other autistic adults through a mix of interviews and surveys. He asked questions regarding how the world of work has treated them and how their autism impacted employment outcomes. The results of these interviews suggest that systemic change to the world of employment must be made in order to better include autistic adults.
Read more about the project here.
The findings propose a new framework for how self-determination can positively impact autistic adults' employment prospects. Berman found that autistic people are often unemployed, work fewer hours and earn less money than neurotypical peers with other disabilities. Autistic people also struggle to determine their career paths and are directed by others into undesired careers.
Questions the study answered: |
What self-determination capacity variables predict gainful, high-quality employment for autistic students? |
How do the individual capacities (volitional action, agentic action, and action-control beliefs) of self-determination affect employment outcomes for autistic people? |
What self-determination skills do autistic people value the most in finding and maintaining high-quality employment? |
What makes autistic people satisfied with their employment? |
What do autistic adults say about employment and self-determination that would explain the regression analysis? |
With the help of his research, seven themes of autism and employment were found common amongst autistic adults as well as many areas of silence between the survey and interview results.