In recent years, there has been a shift in the curriculum of students with intellectual disability (ID) toward a standardsbased curriculum and instruction in core content standards (Ayres, Lowrey, Douglas, & Sievers, 2011). Legal mandates have specified that all students in special education have access to the general education curriculum and participate in state and district assessment (Individuals With Disabilities Education Act [IDEA], 2004). These new regulations and emphasis on standards-based reform have led school districts and researchers to examine how to incorporate students with ID in the general education curriculum. In addition to regulations, analyses from the National Longitudinal Transition Survey (NLTS-2) indicate students with ID who received a functional curriculum in secondary school did not have better post-school outcomes than their peers who received instruction in a curriculum focusing on academics (Bouck, 2010). Despite this push to incorporate more academics in the instruction of students with ID, practitioners still have an obligation to teach students skills needed in future environments. These skills may not necessarily be academic in nature (Ayres et al., 2011). There is a body of research that has focused on incorporating both functional and academic skills in the curriculum for students with ID (

with identifying and disseminating evidencebased practices for the field. As a result, Test, Fowler, et al. (2009) identified 32 evidence-based instructional practices based on high-quality experimental (i.e., group, quasi, subject-subject) research, and Test, Mazzotti, et al. (2009) identified 16 predictors of in-school activities that were positively correlated with postschool outcomes. Since then, NSTTAC, and now the National Technical Assistance Center on Transition (NTACT: funded January 2015-December 2019), continued to identify new instructional practices, and Mazzotti et al. (2016) identified an additional four predictors bringing the total to 20. As these secondary transition practices and predictors have been identified and disseminated, a common theme has been recognition of the need for more high-quality experimental and correlational research (

Despite legislation to improve post-school outcomes for young adults with autism spectrum disorder, they experience poorer employment outcomes than their peers without disabilities. Data indicate persons with ASD experience lower employment rates, earn less money, work fewer hours, are less engaged in their communities, and live independently less frequently than their peers without disabilities. Furthermore, the earnings of individuals with ASD lag behind earnings of their peers both with and without disabilities. In order to help improve employment outcomes for youth with ASD, this chapter describes the characteristics contributing to employment of individuals with ASD, the factors influencing employment of individuals with ASD, and the research related to evidence-based practices for young adults with ASD.

Secondary transition was formally defined by the federal government in the 1990 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA 1990). In addition to defining transition, IDEA 1990 required the student Individual Education Program (IEP) to include a transition component by age sixteen and transition services for youth with disabilities be coordinated between the school and community service providers. Since 1990, IDEA was amended in 1997 and 2004. IDEA 2004 clarified that the purpose of a free, appropriate public education for a student with a disability was to “prepare them for further education, employment and independent living,” as well as defining transition services as “a coordinated set of activities for a child with a disability that (1) is designed to be within a results oriented process, that is focused on improving the academic and functional achievement of the child with a disability to facilitate the child’s movement from school to post-school activities, including postsecondary education, vocational education, integrated employment (including supported employment), continuing and adult education, adult services, independent living, or community participation; (2) is based on the individual child’s needs, taking into account the child’s strengths, preferences, and interests; and (3) includes instruction, related services, community experiences, the development of employment and other post-school adult living objectives, and if appropriate, acquisition of daily living skills and provision of a functional vocational evaluation” (IDEA; 34 CFR 300.43 (a)] [20 U.S.C. 1401(34)]). While IDEA 2004 provided a formal definition of secondary transition, Halpern 1992 (cited under History) informally defined it as “a period of floundering that occurs for at least the first several years after leaving school as adolescents attempt to assume a variety of adult roles in their communities” (p. 203). As a result, secondary transition is about helping students with disabilities prepare to successfully move from high school to adulthood.