Career Development for Young Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Japan

[Background/Introduction] In many countries, most supports for people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are for the childhood and school ages. However, people with ASD have strong needs toward a school-to-work transition. ... [ view full abstract ]

[Background/Introduction]
In many countries, most supports for people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are for the childhood and school ages. However, people with ASD have strong needs toward a school-to-work transition.

[Rationale]
We have been developing the adult day-care program with emphasis on social skills training since 2008. As of July 2015, we have an enrollment of 350. Among them, 23% are workers having difficulties to adjust themselves to their jobs and 12% are university students struggling for a student-to-work transition.

[Main points]
The program satisfaction survey in 2013 (n=127) found that 66% of participants felt relieved to have peers who suffered from similar difficulties so that they could be free from alienated feeling, and 61% found useful to acquire communication skills. The survey also indicated unmet needs, i.e., the tactical support for high-valued careers based on their unique talents.
The program effectiveness analysis was performed in 2014 for sub-sample (52 participants and 14 non-participants) as to Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ), Social Responsiveness Scale for Adults (SRS-A), Communication Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ), the World Health Organization Quality-of-Life Assessment-26 (WHOQOL-26), Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF). Significant improvement was observed in such as AQ, CSQ, and GAF.

[Conclusion]
We confirmed the effectiveness of day-care program for overall wellness. Since 2014, we have taken two approaches for upgrading the program. One is to develop the standardized day-care programs for other medical facilities. The other is to make the strategic partnership with universities and major companies for the career development support.

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