Rehabilitation Counseling Bulletin

This study assessed whether persons with spinal cord injuries who had been successfully rehabilitated into employment following receipt of rehabilitation services had better quality of life and subjective well-being than the unsuccessfully rehabilitated who did not obtain employment following receipt of rehabilitation services. Persons who were successfully rehabilitated had a significantly higher overall quality of life and health and higher quality of life in their physical health, psychological health, social relationships, and environmental domains than the unsuccessfully rehabilitated. The successfully rehabilitated also had higher psychological, financial, and physical well-being than the unsuccessfully rehabilitated. Rehabilitation counselors can use quality of life and subjective well-being measures to provide more focused interventions during rehabilitation and as an outcome measure in addition to employment upon completion of rehabilitation services.

This study investigated certified rehabilitation counselors’ (CRCs) attitudes, knowledge, and comfort in addressing disability and sexuality issues. One hundred ninety-nine CRCs completed a modified version of the Knowledge, Comfort, Approach and Attitudes toward Sexuality Scale to determine the effect of knowledge and attitudes on level of comfort in addressing sexuality issues with consumers. Counseling and education-type comfort and comfort with sexual solicitations or discovering consumers in sexual situations (approach) were assessed separately. Participants demonstrated low discomfort on the education and counseling-related comfort scale (M = 1.84, SD = .82) and medium discomfort on the approach-related comfort scale (M = 2.78, SD = .96), positive attitudes ( M = 1.53, SD = .74), and average knowledge (M = 2.40, SD = .842). Results of regression analyses indicated that 17% (R ² = .172) of the variance on comfort and 19% (R ² = .189) of the variance on approach could be accounted for by CRCs’ knowledge and attitude, indicating that these were contributing to CRC comfort levels in addressing sexuality with consumers. Implications include the need for continued research concerning factors affecting CRC comfort in addressing sexuality-related issues with consumers, and the need for increased CRC education and training in sexuality and disability.

Numerous studies have indicated racial and ethnic disparities in the vocational rehabilitation (VR) system, including differences in acceptance, services provided, closure types, and employment outcomes. Few of these studies, however, have used advanced multivariate techniques or latent constructs to measure quality of employment outcomes (QEO) or tested hypothesized models for the relationship between race, personal history characteristics, and VR employment outcomes. This study tested an implied conceptual model for the relationship between race, personal history characteristics, and QEO for White, Black, and Hispanic participants in the VR system. The study used structural equation modeling (SEM) and 2006 RSA 911 data. The implied conceptual model was tested for goodness of fit and multiple-group invariance. The final structural model indicated moderate model fit. It also indicated interaction effects for race by gender and for race by public support. Study limitations and suggestions for further research are described.

Although low levels of employment among transition-age youth with visual impairments (VI) have long been a concern, empirical research in this area is very limited. The purpose of this study was to identify factors that predict future employment for this population and to compare these factors to the factors that predict employment for the general population. Participants in the study were young adults between the ages of 18 and 23 in 2002 whose data were obtained from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997. Multilevel modeling for longitudinal data was the technique used to analyze 5 years of employment data for the participants. Two models were developed and tested: one for persons with VI and one for the general population. Independent variables found to significantly predict employment for young adults with VI were number of jobs held as a teenager, math and verbal aptitude, parental support, and self-reported health. Participation in school-to-work programs and educational level did not significantly predict employment for this population. Results are compared and contrasted with results for the general population. The importance of having a number of early work experiences while also focusing on academic skills for youth with VI is discussed.

The construct of work personality has been linked to the development of effective work behaviors and overall vocational adjustment for individuals with disabilities. One conceptualization of work personality that has received consideration in the rehabilitation research literature is the construct of developmental work personality (DWP). The primary strengths of the DWP model are that it is grounded in developmental, learning, and work theories that have been widely validated with multiple populations in a variety of contexts and that the model is designed to explain components of the work personality, described by Neff as being “semi-autonomous.” The purpose of this study is to provide evidence of the psychometric properties of the DWP scale in samples of persons eligible to receive vocational rehabilitation services. The results of this three-phase study reveal empirically defined factors of the scale that correspond to the DWP model, adequate convergent validity measures, and adequate to good internal and temporal reliability coefficients in a sample of students. Recommendations for best use of the model and scale are included.