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This journal article highlights the growth in college programs for students with ID and shares strategies for program development.

Think College Insight Brief #30 features information gleaned from interviews with parents of youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The parents' answers to 10 questions, and additional thoughts and guidance are shared with the reader. These parents had played key leadership roles in establishing postsecondary education (PSE) programs for students with IDD. Five parent leaders, from five different states, participated.

College programs for students with intellectual disability frequently engage peer mentors to promote students' social connections on campus. The qualitative study discussed in this article was conducted to explore, from mentors' perspectives, how mentor/mentee relationships developed, how mentors offered supports, and how mentors facilitated membership into the campus community. Using Pawson's (2004) conceptual framework, mentoring relationships were analyzed in regard to status, reference group, and mentoring mechanisms.

Examining the data collection practices implemented by postsecondary education programs for students with intellectual and developmental disability represents the first step in documenting student progress, making programmatic data-based decisions, and evaluating the overall program effectiveness in preparing students for competitive employment.

Students with intellectual disability (ID) now have opportunities to attend college. In 2014, students with ID accessed college through 221 Postsecondary education (PSE) programs in the United States (Think College, 2014). Students join PSE programs to acquire personal,social, and vocational skills to increase the likelihood of an independent and employed future. This study gave six students with ID, who were accessing college through a PSE program in the 2012-2013 academic year, the opportunity to assess their social experiences in the college community.

This is a case study about Greg, including a Positive Personal Profile and some sample questions to review. 

This brief checklist can help students identify in which areas their strengths lie (verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, visual-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, interpersonal), and which learning style best describes them.

Use this Features to Benefits example as a guide for how to sell yourself and get your foot in the door to start negotiations with potential employers. 

This blank template can be completed with a student to determine personal strengths, weaknesses, preferences, and more, and is very helpful when beginning a job search. 

This checklist presents common “satisfaction factors” that people receive from their jobs. This can be done by an individual job seeker or with the assistance of a job specialist or family member. The user should begin by reading the entire list, and then rate each item.