Assisting Adult Educators in Preparing Individuals with Disabilities for Employment.

Because many consider a high school diploma to be a minimum requirement for entry into a permanent, well-paid occupation, lack of a diploma is a major barrier. Students with disabilities are disproportionately over- represented among the students who leave high school without a diploma. One of their best options is to attend an adult education program and work on a General Education Development (GED) diploma. Some estimates suggest that students with disabilities comprise as much as 30 percent of the adult education population (Hall, 1997). While federal legislation mandates accommodating the needs of persons with disabilities, adult education programs have had difficulty meeting this challenge. This article reviews the adult education option for students with disabilities and describes some of the work at the University of Kansas to assist adult educators in preparing participants with disabilities for the employment setting.

According to governmental prevalence estimates, the number of persons with disabilities in adult education programs ranges from 6 percent to more than 30 percent (U.S. Department of Education, 1992). Their disabilities are as varied as developmental disabilities, learning disabilities, severe emotional disabilities, mental retardation, vision impairments, hearing impairments, arthritis, spinal injury, heart trouble, and diabetes. Hall (1997) and White and Poison (1999) reported that, on the basis of national surveys, adult educators estimated 81 percent of the adults they served had a disability and 19 percent had verified disabilities. These adults, whose disabilities impact their educational achievement, are disproportionately overrepresented in populations of school dropouts, incarcerated individuals, mental health clients, and the unemployed. Conversely, they are underrepresented in postsecondary education enrollments, vocational training programs, the population of adults living independently, and in the American work force (Edgar, 1987; Horn & Berktold, 1999; Sitlington, Frank, & Carson, 1993). Thus, disabilities impact people in many areas of their lives, while accommodations represent an important way to lessen the impact and improve the quality of life for persons with disabilities.

This article reviews alternative frameworks for understanding accommodations and reports the findings from a national demonstration project directed at improving adult education services for learners with disabilities.

Accommodations in Definition and Practice

A variety of alternative frameworks are available for understanding "accommodations." These frameworks include legal, educational, programmatic (e.g., GED Test Service), and occupational therapy perspectives. A basic understanding of these alternative frameworks can help service providers and policymakers develop an integrated perspective that can benefit learners and employees.

Legal framework. Legislation of the past decade, including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the Carl Perkins Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), reflects a strong commitment to meeting the needs of adults with disabilities in education, training, community facilities, and the work force. As a result of such legislation, assurance of reasonable and appropriate accommodations in educational, community and employment settings is mandated, including adult education. The distinctions that exist among these laws and their supporting regulations are important to adult education. Excellent reviews of these laws are available, or one could read the laws (Barr, Hartman, & Spillane, 1995; Brinckerhoff, Shaw, & McGuire, 1992; Hayward, Lawton, and Associates, 1990; Mellard, 1996).

Under Title II of ADA, which applies to adult education services, accommodations are organized into three broad categories: (a) reasonable modification of policies, practices and procedures, 28 CFR [sections] 35.130, (b) program accessibility, 28 CFR [sections] 35.150 and (c) communications (auxiliary aids and services, 28 CFR [sections] 35.160). This framework is represented in Figure 1 which includes examples of accommodations for each part of the regulation.

[Figure 1 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

One of the important features of the ADA framework is that it introduces the concept that accommodations can be organized to address learners' different needs. For example, physical accessibility is one domain in which programs need to provide accommodations. Access to a program is the pre eminent requirement for a learner, but it is not sufficient. If the learner is unable to access the services, none of the other positive features of the program would make any difference. Other accommodations such as alternative communication formats or changes in policies may be needed to afford a person an opportunity to benefit from the access. So, as a legal framework, ADA alerts program staff to the learner's requirements under the law but it does not help with matching the learner to a needed accommodation.

Many people are confused about the limits of a program's responsibility. According to guidelines provided by ADA regulations, accommodations should (a) be based on documented individual needs; (b) allow the most integrated experience possible; (c) not compromise the essential requirements of a course or program; (d) not pose a threat to personal or public safety; (e) not impose undue financial or administrative burdens on the program; and (f) not be of a personal nature (e.g., personally prescribed devices such as eyeglasses or a wheelchair).

Educational framework. In education, "accommodations" are frequently thought of as academic-related adjustments or auxiliary aids. Ysseldyke, Thurlow and Silverstein (1994) identified four possible areas of adjustments: (a) presentation, (b) response, (c) time, and (d) setting. Mather and Roberts (1995) put the emphasis on curricular adjustments. According to these authors, accommodations are "adjustments in curricular demands that allow a student to succeed. These changes in the school environment result in the provision of equal opportunity and equal access to all students" (p.8585). Figure 2 depicts Mather's and Roberts' organization of accommodations into four categories.

[Figure 2 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The advantage gleaned from their categorization is the inclusion of "attitudinal" accommodations. Judging from comments of adult educators (Hall, 1998) and employers (Fabian, Luecking & Tilson, 1995), one of the most significant barriers is the lack of acceptance of persons with disabilities. These negative attitudes often reflect personal fears: They (persons with disabilities) will scare off other persons we want to help; they are different from our other customers; or they need more specialized help than we can provide. Certainly if persons with disabilities are going to be integrated into society, these attitudinal issues need to be addressed. Changing such attitudes requires a much more intensive, sustained effort than what is needed for removing architectural barriers.

While accommodations are considered from a somewhat broader perspective as a means for improving personal competence in education settings (Mather & Roberts, 1995; Mellard, 1996), the employment setting focuses more narrowly on accommodations to meet ADA requirements (Dolately, 1993). Under ADA, "accommodation" means "any change or adjustment to a job or work environment that permits a qualified applicant or employee with a disability to participate in the job application process, to perform the essential functions of a job, or to enjoy benefits and privileges of employment equal to those enjoyed by employees without disabilities" (Americans with Disabilities Act, 1990; Great Plains Disability and Business Technical Assistance Center, n.d., p.24). Consistent with this perspective, examples of accommodations in the work setting include: acquiring or modifying equipment or devices, job restructuring, part-time or modified work schedules, providing readers or interpreters, and making the workplace accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities. Figure 3 reflects these ADA distinctions in employment.

[Figure 3 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Programmatic framework. A discussion of accommodations frequently moves from the value of including persons with disabilities to equality and equity issues. For example, from an equity perspective one might question why is it fair to allow a person with disability extended time on a test? Doesn't such a change compromise the fairness of the test for other students who don't receive the accommodation? Other persons can persuasively argue that the change in the format or procedures for tasks such as tests results in a substantial change of the activity and, to carry the test example further, should alter the way in which scores are interpreted (Phillips, 1997, 1998). Thus, equity and fairness issues must also be considered in the validity of changes in academic tests or assignments. Within the adult education program, test accommodations are a major issue for learners taking the General Education Development (GED) tests. Successfully completing the GED is an alternative means of earning a high school diploma. Test accommodation procedures are also confronted on other national or state exams (e.g., college placement tests, entrance exams for professional schools such as law and medical schools and certification exams).

The GED Testing Service (GEDTS), which has national administrative responsibilities for the GED examinations, provides information about acceptable and unacceptable accommodations for persons with disabilities who want to take the GED (GEDTS/ACE, 1993). Acceptable accommodations include: extra time, private testing rooms, frequent breaks, interpreters, scribes, calculators, audiocassette administration, braille, and large print. Two unacceptable accommodations are using computers for writing essays or recording responses and employing readers. While GEDTS believes that consistent interpretation of test results is paramount, that model may not be accommodating to persons with disabilities who need to complete the exam as a prerequisite to other activities (e.g., employment or entrance to a postsecondary setting).

Brinckerhoff, Shaw and McGuire (1992) cited the following examples of accommodations for postsecondary settings: changes in the length of time permitted to complete a degree, substitution of specific courses and additional time for testing. Other types of adjustments include access to taped textbooks, readers, computers, lecture notes, or other means of making oral information available in alternative forms. If educational settings allow such accommodations for meeting degree or certification requirements, other agencies (e.g., GEDTS) seemingly have a more difficult time justifying the restriction of options for qualified individuals.

While negative attitudes can significantly limit accommodations, other substantive issues are also involved--issues that are properly viewed from perspectives of justice and the science of psychometrics. Such perspectives provide a link to the courts as a means of resolution.

Occupational therapy framework. Up to this point, the legal basis for accommodations and educational and programmatic models and related issues have been presented. In completing our research we were consistently troubled by observations and students' reports that accommodation decisions were made for the learner. That is, the choice of the accommodation was based on an agency's guidelines, the disability label and a process completed by the instructor. In addition, our interview and survey findings indicated that few adult educators had extensive knowledge about disability conditions and that at least a quarter of them felt uncomfortable working with persons with disabilities. What we wanted to do was to offer an alternative accommodations framework in which the learner and educator could jointly participate in the accommodation selection process and provide a formal framework for that decision process. For example, we wanted to de-emphasize the weight given to a person's disability and rather emphasize the functional needs of the individual within the adult education program. In addition, we wanted to use those assessed needs to guide the accommodation selection process in a manner in which the learner could actively participate. From our perspective then, we rejected the use of "accommodation lists" and wanted a strategy the learner and educator could use in jointly considering alternative accommodations.

Two very different models (Smith, 1993; Dunn, Brown & McGuigan, 1994) helped us achieve these goals and increase our understanding of accommodations. Roger Smith and his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee had been working on the use of adaptive equipment and technology for accommodating persons, which was the first model we examined. Smith (1993) outlined two broad strategies for accommodations. One strategy focused on changes in the individual and the second focused on environmental changes that help the person compensate for impaired human function.

The concepts of adaptive/assistive versus rehabilitative/educational are important and essential to understand. Future decisions will be based on trade-offs (emphasis added) between these two approaches used in occupational therapy intervention. Adaptive/assistive technologies in this classification scheme are defined as those that help an individual compensate or substitute for human function that has been lost. Adaptive/assistive technologies assume that there is a gap between the functional performance of an individual and his or her ideal performance. This gap can be partially filled through the aid of adaptive/assistive devices. On the other hand, technologies can be used not only to help compensate for loss of function, but actually to improve the function of an individual through rehabilitation or education. (p.11)

The critical concept underlying the differentiation between these two types of technologies is that when resources are limited and there is not sufficient financial support to provide all of the needed interventions for students with disabilities, decisions will be based on whether it makes more sense to invest in environment-adjusted interventions, which include adaptive/assistive technologies, or whether it makes more sense to invest in environment-free interventions such as rehabilitation/educational technologies or direct education and therapy. (p.12)

Two important concepts from their work that were especially helpful were that of (a) thinking of accommodations as organized into two approaches or strategies with unique outcomes and (b) viewing the decision about which strategy to pursue as one that involves trade-offs. Because the accommodation decision has long-term consequences, the learner needs to be involved in weighing the pros and cons of the two strategies.

The Ecology of Human Performance (EHP) framework (Dunn et al., 1994) provided the second framework for further organizing and developing accommodation strategies. The EHP framework was developed by the occupational therapy faculty at the University of Kansas Medical Center. As the faculty examined evaluation and intervention relative to performance components and performance areas, they realized that the importance of context, though acknowledged in principle, had not been integrated in evaluation and intervention planning. The complexities of context and its influence on performance have been long recognized across many disciplines and, yet, have not been well integrated into a cohesive framework. "The primary theoretical postulate fundamental to the EHP framework is that ecology, or the interaction between person and the environment, affects human behavior and performance and that performance cannot be understood outside of context" (Dunn et al., 1994, p. 598). That principle then helped us understand how accommodations could be grouped into five strategies--those that: (a) establish or restore needed ability; (b) alter the context; (c) adapt or modify the task or contextual features; (d) prevent barriers; and (e) create circumstances that enhance performance. The establish/restore strategy parallels Smith's rehabilitation/educational category. The other four EHP strategies appear to us as further delineation of Smith's adaptive/assistive category. We see some advantages to these delineations by giving the practitioner and learner a framework for further analysis of contextual and task features.

Synthesizing these perspectives affords us an opportunity to change the approach of accommodating students or employees with disabilities. For example, rather than making accommodation decisions on the basis of a disability, the emphasis shifts to an analysis of the person's goals and needs; the disability per se is reduced in importance. Another significant change is that accommodations can be organized into a strategic framework. The five EHP strategies illustrate that accommodations have different emphases: changing the person, changing the task, and changing other contextual features. The choice of which strategy to pursue has immediate and long-term consequences, which fits with the next point. The person becomes an integral decisionmaker in the process of choosing among the five strategies. For example, the participant identifies goals and accommodation features that are more important and those that are less important.

In our work in the adult education setting, participants identified numerous features of accommodations that were important in selecting one accommodation strategy (e.g., establish/restore, alter, adapt/modify, prevent, or create) or even one accommodation over another. Some of these features which were part of that decision process are listed in Table 1. Just as most of us can describe the features we need or want in an automobile, a person in need of an accommodation can describe the features important in that selection. Just as buying a car is consumer directed, so also should accommodation selection be consumer directed. Imagine the accommodation selection process in which the discussion focuses on reviewing a list of accommodations, selecting one or two based on the person's disability, and agreeing to "give it a try." Now imagine the process and concurrent discussion when the learner and instructor discuss the learner's goals; how those goals fit with long-term plans for employment, continued education, and quality of life; and characteristics of different accommodations. The discussion changes when the learner realizes that an immediately powerful accommodation (e.g., having a scribe or reader) is also an expensive accommodation over the long run, does not develop the learner's skills in dealing effectively with such tasks, leaves the learner dependent on someone else, and will always distinguish the learner in a social setting.

Table 1

Characteristics Guiding Accommodation Selections

1. Acceptance by others in the program
2. Amount of learner training required
3. Approved by test agency (e.g., GED Testing Service)
4. Availability of accommodation
5. Cost of accommodation
6. Documented in the learner's educational records
7. Ease of incorporating the accommodation into the routine
9. Expected power/benefit
10. Gain in independence
11. Instructor knowledge
12. Learner's functional need
13. Long-term benefit
14. Need for additional support by another
15. Social benefits to learner
16. Suitability for different tasks
17. Use across environments; portability

One of the best features of the EHP accommodations framework is its formative, futures-directed characteristic. That is, the five EHP strategies are "accommodating" for future developments. As professionals across disciplines continue to develop their understanding of disabilities and contextual features, this framework is inclusive enough for incorporating that understanding and the resulting accommodations. For example, imagine the employee or learner whose disability is a functional limitation in listening and comprehending orally presented information. As technologies are refined to allow improved listening comprehension, those technological advances can be included as one of the five strategies (e.g., adapt or create). The EHP framework encourages an analysis of personal, contextual, task, and performance characteristics and goals.

Case Studies

The following examples serve as applications of the accommodations model. These fictional learners are based on real persons enrolled in adult education programs involved in our NIDRR project's pilot and field test sites.

Accommodations for a learning disability. Tyrone is a 19 year old with a learning disability in the area of math calculation. Like many students with learning disabilities, the high school experience was not a positive one and he dropped out of school. He lives with his parents and is attending adult education classes to pass the GED tests and graduate from high school. He is very frustrated with "the system" and feels like he has fallen through the cracks.

After conducting an interview with Tyrone, his teacher discovered that he became overwhelmed when presented with too many math problems at once. She also noticed that he sometimes left his seat during class, which both agreed was distracting to learners and limited his ability to complete assignments. Together, Tyrone and his teacher agreed that very focused instruction on math computations and some accommodations would be initiated. In addition to specialized instruction, his apparent math disability could be accommodated by the instructor breaking the assignment into sets of tasks (adapt strategy), allowing the use of graph paper to help him align his number columns (adapt strategy) and providing frequent short breaks to prevent frustration from mounting (prevent strategy).

Tyrone eventually passed the GED practice test in math and is well on his way to completing his diploma. Now that he understands the value of such accommodations, he plans to seek an employment setting which is compatible with frequent, short breaks as a job accommodation.

Accommodations for a health disability. Linda is a 34-year-old single mother of two children. She is currently working at a minimum-wage job. She has a history of substance abuse and is diabetic. Linda wants to pass the GED tests so that she can get a better job and more successfully advocate for her son at school.

Perhaps due to her history of substance abuse, Linda seemed to have significant difficulties with remembering things. She also had a medical need to measure her blood sugar levels and eat snacks to maintain the proper levels.

With her instructor, Linda worked out a system to create a weekly calendar of assignments to help her organize her priorities and complete tasks (adapt). The calendar also gave her instructor a framework upon which to gauge Linda's educational progress and give her feedback. Linda appreciated being allowed to store snacks and insulin in the staff refrigerator.

With a letter from her doctor, Linda was able to request breaks to monitor her blood sugar during the GED exams (prevent). She has become more successful at work by keeping a calendar, and her self-esteem has increased to the level that she feels confident in meeting with her son's teachers.

Barriers to Effective Accommodations

In our statewide interviews of 23 adult educators, 80 percent reported being comfortable with providing accommodations to learners with disabilities but frustrated by limited resources to do so (Hall, 1998). This frustration was mirrored in our national survey of 622 adult programs. In that survey, adult education staff were asked to identify barriers to providing effective accommodations. The most frequently cited barriers were: limited budget (75% of respondents), limited staff (56%), lack of training (42%), and lack of resources for assessments (36%) (Hall, 1997). In speaking with program staff at our project's pilot site, we also learned that most adult educators feel that working with learners with disabilities takes too much time away from other learners. These and other barriers described below limit the ability of adult education staff to effectively accommodate learners with disabilities.

Broadly, the barriers to accommodations in adult education programs fall into five categories:

* Attitudinal

* Fiscal

* Staff Knowledge/Training

* Programmatic

* Environmental

Project activities were designed to address and ameliorate each of these barriers.

Attitudinal Barriers. The predominant attitudinal barrier to providing effective accommodations was staff members' belief that they were already accommodating learners with disabilities simply by providing individualized instruction and support. Another erroneous belief of educators was that they simply did not have any learners with disabilities or had only a few. Subsequent project activities revealed that although about one-third of adult education participants probably have disabilities, only about one-half of that number (19%) have documentation of their disability (Hall, 1997). These attitudes were addressed by providing information and training to adult educators on the many different types of disabilities and the areas of functional need which may result.

Another troublesome finding from the statewide interviews was that learners were involved only about half of the time when accommodations were being selected for them by program staff (Hall, 1998). At least in some instances, this situation seemed to be best explained by the presence of a paternalistic, "I know what's best for you," attitude on the part of educators. This finding is notable because, in the work setting, the learner bears the responsibility for requesting an accommodation; this process is much facilitated by that person being familiar with selecting accommodations appropriate to particular tasks and the context. For this reason, a self-advocacy curriculum was included in the EHP project materials and staff development activities. The hope was that adult educators could use the curriculum as a framework to assist learners to become effective self-advocates once they leave the program. (Within the EHP framework, the curriculum could be considered as an example of the prevent strategy.)

Fiscal Barriers. In comparison to public K-12 programs, adult education programs typically receive very little funding. In Kansas, for example, annual funding per learner in adult education is approximately $270 while annual funding per student in the K-12 program is about $3,770, and students served under IDEA generate additional funding through federal and state entitlements. Categorical funding for K-12 students with identified disabilities increases the per student rate for these students to approximately $5,000. No such differential funding occurs for participants with disabilities in adult education programs.

Thus, the financial barriers to accommodations reported by adult education staff are hardly surprising. Nevertheless, these fiscal barriers can be addressed in many ways and may not be as substantial as perceived. First, staff must become aware that accommodations need not be costly. In the project's national survey of adult education programs, most of the accommodations identified as being both frequently used and effective were also those that cost very little or nothing at all (White, 1998). Most of these accommodations required no special equipment, but rather involved modifying the task for the learner. This generalization was true across disability type or functional need.

When a significant cost is involved in the provision of an accommodation, educators are encouraged to access local, state and national resources to the extent possible. These resources include state assistive technology projects, disability-specific organizations and foundations, Medicaid and Medicare, private insurance, vocational rehabilitation, workers compensation, the Veterans Administration, and special education funds (for learners younger than 22). Free services, such as those available through the Job Accommodation Network and local centers for independent living, can also assist educators in locating appropriate and low cost equipment and alternatives.

Staff Knowledge. Frequently identified as a barrier within adult education programs, staff knowledge issues incorporate a variety of content areas including knowledge about different types of disabilities, legal issues, procedures for determining effective accommodations, and relevant resources available. Each of these content areas was addressed through accommodations project products and staff development sessions. However, due to the high rate of turnover of adult education staff, such efforts need to be ongoing. Again, funding for training becomes an issue.

Programmatic. Programmatic barriers encountered during the accommodations project ranged from the lack of physical accessibility of facilities to lack of established guidelines for program participation. Project materials described each of the five ADA administrative requirements and provided resources to assist in implementing them. Two project products, especially, seemed to be helpful to programs in meeting the administrative requirements. First, we provided a sample ADA notice for posting at programs. Many programs asked us for personalized copies of the notice. Second, we provided a trifold brochure on learner rights and responsibilities (available in English, Hmong, Russian, Somali, Spanish, and Vietnamese versions as well as audiotape and braille versions).

A more difficult issue was helping adult educators to understand the need for careful instruction in the use of accommodations and for monitoring their efficacy. Careful instruction in the use of an accommodation, especially one involving an assistive device, is important for improving its successful application. A related concern frequently expressed by the learners was that the accommodations were not monitored for effectiveness. The prevailing practice seemed to involve an informal check of whether an accommodation was working. The learners benefit from formal documentation of the accommodation's effectiveness not only in an adult education setting, but also if they should go into postsecondary settings. In the latter, the staff of the student assistance center confront a more difficult situation of justifying the use of accommodations for particular students or distinguishing why one student should have an accommodation (e.g., extended time on a test or assignment) and another student should not. A difficulty lies in striking a balance between accommodating a person's disability-related needs and gaining an unfair advantage through an accommodation (Gamble, 1993; Scott, 1994).

Environmental. This area of barriers is at least partly linked to fiscal barriers for programs. Namely, due to budget constraints, many programs take place in leased or borrowed space or in older buildings and facilities. Accommodations related to physical access or environmental modifications can be especially difficult to achieve in these settings. The project materials addressed this issue by providing a number of alternative options for accessibility and environmental modifications.

Summary

Accommodations are a critical component for improving the quality of life for many people with disabilities. Accommodations in the adult education setting are important in that they often provide the foundation for learners' requesting and successfully utilizing appropriate accommodations in postsecondary and workplace settings. The ADA provides a legal framework for understanding the rights and responsibilities of persons and institutions and for categorizing accommodations. The extensive work by Smith (1993) and Dunn et al. (1994) provides frameworks for persons with disabilities and service providers or employers to discuss alternative accommodations and their associated long-term consequences. Also, within that context the real and perceived barriers to providing accommodations can be examined and addressed through planned activities, the most important of which are increasing staff development opportunities.

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Dr. Mellard and Ms. Hall are Research Associates at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning, Division of Adult Studies, Lawrence, KS. Ms. Parker is a Teaching Associate in the Department of Therapy Education at the University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS.