What is Transition to Employment (TTE)?
Transition to Employment (TTE) supports individuals as they gain soft job search and employment skills for supervised or fully independent employment, including social competence (e.g., composure, appearance, social problem-solving and teamwork; Barrick et al., 2012). For example, Chiang et al. (2013) examined 830 cases of secondary school graduates with ASD to find that those with poor social skills were significantly less likely to find a job.
What are common challenges to employment?
Generally, challenges to employment can be broken down into two large categories, including societal/external and individual barriers.
Societal or external barriers include:
- Benefits trap (Pratt et al., 2014)
- Prejudice (Boardman, 2003)
- Fear and discrimination (Boardman, 2003)
- Accessibility issues (Smith, 2003)
- Low expectations for disabled people (Smith, 2003)
- Lack of knowledge and understanding by employers (López & Keenan, 2014)
Individual barriers include:
- Social immaturity and naivety (Wing, 1989)
- Socially inappropriate behaviors (Howlin et al.’s 2005)
- Challenges with communication and understanding instructions (Müller et al., 2003)
- Poor hygiene (Hendricks, 2010)