Essay Sample on Supported Employment

Introduction

People with intellectual disabilities are faced with very many challenges that make their learning difficulties. As a result, they are unable to manage most of their affairs well (Roblyer, M. D., & Doering, A. H., 2006). This includes various aspects of their daily life from maintaining personal hygiene as well as household hygiene to how they interact socially and at the workplace. Most people with intellectual disabilities are forced to rely on others, and this is usually a challenge to those people including their family members and their health care providers. The learner I am assigned to has some difficulties in expressing herself through languages. The learner has delayed response in processing language as a result has a noticeable delayed response to instructions. She is suffering from Autism Spectrum Disorders. The condition alters how a person connects with the world around him, how he or she communicates and how one relates to others (Emerson, 1995). This paper explains how people with learning disabilities acquire the intellectual capabilities enjoyed by others.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Companies and organizations ought to put up measures that allow them to offer specialized training to individuals with learning disabilities who qualify for various job positions (Bond, 2004). The transition from school to work is often difficult for most people including people without learning difficulties, and therefore people with learning problems should be given specialized training to ensure they are also eventually able to adapt. My assigned learner has a disorder that makes her poor in adapting to social environments. This is due to her poor communication skills. Proper communication skills involve active listening and the ability to follow to follow instructions. Such skills are very crucial in any workplace. Technology offers solutions to almost all aspects of human life (Roblyer, M. D., & Doering, A. H., 2006). Therefore we cannot take its application in this field for granted. The tools I choose for my task will include digital devices capable of reinforcing communication skills. Since everyone loves interacting with their digital gadgets such as mobile phones, I will use an application that the learner can install in her device and interact with it to improve her skills. Since my assigned learner lacks social skills, I intend to use a technology that will assist the learner to acquire social skills as fast as possible.

My technological tool of choice for this task is Face say Social Skills Software Games. The software can be of help to either children or adults with emotional or behavioral problems. Having analyzed the learner's current capabilities, I will now monitor her learning process continually by assessing her on essential communication skills required to operate comfortably in a working environment such as interacting with customers. I will also need to be available throughout her learning process to ensure I can easily monitor her progress.

The evaluation conducted before the study showed that the learner could not hold any verbal communication with a stranger or a person she is not used to. The learning tool was very effective in that the learner was able to adapt to the learning process without any significant challenges. Using Autism Teaching tools I can easily record all the necessary data in the skills tracking sheets provided. The data will be recorded progressively as the learner continues interacting with her learning devices. From the data collected an analysis was done including representing the information on graphs. The progress realized was quite impressive. The learner had acquired some basic skills on how to interact with others in the workplace. The learning tool applied may not be for long-term purposes. Other more advanced tools are recommended to ensure the learner gains more complex skills. The device used was, however, useful as a starting point.

In analyzing the progress at first, I had to pay attention to singular behaviors like simple responses to verbal instructions but after I had confirmed the learner had acquired the required basic skills I went further to probe multiple skills cognition that involved multitasking. Probing multiple skills required that the learner is given a task that required her to connect with other already learned tasks to respond to the instruction given. The learner showed positive progress and the ability to coordinate well. This was an improvement from her initial situation before the assisted learning was implemented. The necessary data acquired through the learning process is recorded in the Applied Behavior Analysis system. This is an effective tool in that the progress is measured systematically making it easy to deduce the necessary information for effective progress monitoring.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is evident that the performance of learners at the workplace can be improved through technology. This gives the assisted learner a chance to fit in the job with minimal problems. The tool applied was successful in imparting the necessary basic skills to the learner. However, research should be done to unveil better tools necessary to develop complex skills that may be impossible to learn through the technique used in this analysis. However, the tool used offers huge benefits to the learner and to the respective cooperations where they work. Since the law is clear that all persons should be granted equal opportunities for employment, it is highly necessary that investments on improving adaptability to working environments are made. This will not only increase production but also improve self-esteem for people with learning disabilities for a better living.

References

Bond, G. R. (2004). Supported employment: evidence for evidence-based practice. Psychiatric rehabilitation journal, 27(4), 345.

Emerson, E. (1995). Challenging behavior: Analysis and intervention in people with learning disabilities. Cambridge University Press, 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211.

Roblyer, M. D., & Doering, A. H. (2006). Integrating Educational Technology Into Teaching (Vol. 2). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall.