Career Development and Transition for Exceptional Individuals, Ahead of Print.
Daily living skills (DLS) are crucial to the postschool success of all students with disabilities. However, there are discrepancies in the opportunities and supports for the development of DLS for students with intellectual disability and autism. In this pre-registered study, we used data from the National Longitudinal Transition Study 2012 to create a latent construct of DLS and examine its relationship with economic hardship. Results indicated students with intellectual disability and autism had the lowest level of DLS compared with students with high-incidence disabilities. Non-White students faced higher levels of economic hardship compared with White students. Results from this study have implications for large-scale survey design and indicate a need for additional research on students of color with intellectual disability or autism.

Career Development and Transition for Exceptional Individuals, Ahead of Print.
As more opportunities for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) to attend college emerge, it is important for secondary special education teachers to be knowledgeable about how to prepare students with IDD for college. We conducted a survey of 1,048 secondary special education teachers from Illinois, Missouri, and Texas to understand their prior experiences with receiving education and training addressing college options for students with IDD, the instruction and activities their students with IDD participate in to prepare for college, and teachers’ perceptions of their own mastery of college preparation domains. We also investigated the extent to which teachers’ demographics, education and training, caseload, and school demographics were associated with their perceptions of their own mastery of college preparation domains. Our results suggest teachers’ perceived levels of mastery and the types of activities in which students with IDD participate in vary significantly by college preparation domain. We discuss implications our results have for teacher preparation programs, middle and high schools, special education teachers, and researchers.

Career Development and Transition for Exceptional Individuals, Ahead of Print.
The purpose of this study was to understand transition educators’ perceptions of key features of community-based work experiences (CBWEs) that facilitate growth for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). We interviewed 20 transition educators who planned and implemented CBWEs for transition-aged youth with IDD within the last 5 years. We used thematic analysis procedures to identify key features of CBWEs that facilitated growth for students with IDD. Transition educators identified four key features of CBWEs including (a) meaningful work experiences, (b) instruction, (c) support networks, and (d) high expectations. We discuss the implications of our findings related to transition educators’ planning and implementation of CBWEs for students with IDD as well as additional research that is needed to better understand how to provide high-quality CBWEs that prepare students with IDD for competitive, integrated employment.

Career Development and Transition for Exceptional Individuals, Ahead of Print.
College students with and without disabilities completed measures of Planned Happenstance Skills (PHS) and reported their demographic attributes (i.e., age, year of study, gender, race/ethnicity, SES, disability status). In general, the result shows that disability status, gender, race/ethnicity, and year of study were significant predictors of PHS levels. We also examined the magnitude of differences in PHS in each dimension (i.e., curiosity, flexibility, persistence, optimism, and risk-taking) between college students with and without disabilities after controlling for the key covariates. The result shows that college students with disabilities generally exhibited similar and slightly higher PHS levels compared to their counterparts without disabilities. Possible explanations of the results and limitations are discussed, along with implications for research and practice.

Career Development and Transition for Exceptional Individuals, Volume 48, Issue 1, Page 3-5, February 2025.