Authors:
Foley KR, Jacoby P, Girdler S, Bourke J, Pikora T, Lennox N, Einfeld S, Llewellyn G, Parmenter TR, Leonard H
Authors notes:
Child: Care, Health and Development. 2013:online
Keywords:
Adolescents, Employment, ICF, Intellectual disability
Abstract:
To investigate the relationship between functioning and post-school day occupation for young adults with Down syndrome.
Young adults were reported as participating in open employment (n = 42), training (n = 17), sheltered employment (n = 64) or ATE (n = 41) post-school.
Those who reported better functioning in self-care, community and communication skills were more likely to be in open employment and/or attending Technical and Further Education compared with those attending sheltered employment and/or ATE after adjusting for age, gender and rural/metropolitan regions.
Current health as measured by visits to a general practitioner (GP) and hospitalizations revealed a weak relationship with post-school day occupations, with increasing likelihood of participating in open employment or training with increasing hospitalizations and GP visits.
Our analysis shows that functioning in activities of daily living was related to post-school day occupation.
Current health status and behaviour were found to have a weak relationship with post-school day occupation adjusting for functioning in the final model.