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As the occupational therapy profession concerns itself with how people occupy their time during daily life, it is critical for occupational therapists who serve children to understand how to apply their knowledge and skills within the complex and varied environments of the community. A core text for over 10 years, Best Practice Occupational Therapy for Children and Families in Community Settings, Second Edition by Dr. Winnie Dunn provides a clear insight into how to conceive, design, implement, and evaluate services that reflect core principles. Best Practice Occupational Therapy for Children and Families in Community Settings, Second Edition provides the most current information about providing services within community settings, with material addressing early intervention, early childhood, school-age services, and transitions. The context of this text is rooted in best practice principles from interdisciplinary literature and illustrates how occupational therapy professionals implement those principles in their everyday practices. New Features of the Second Edition: Updated assessments, evidence, and appendices Case studies that illustrate the implementation of ideas in a practice situation Worksheets that outline each step in the occupational therapy process from what to include to how to provide rationale for team members, families, and consumers Tables and inserts that summarize key points Information regarding state and federal legislation to guide the occupational therapists in how to negotiate for best practice services within parameters of regulations Integrated throughout the text is the American Occupational Therapy Association's Occupational Therapy Practice Framework Additional on-line resources that are available with new book purchases Instructors in educational settings can visit www.efacultylounge.com for additional material to be used for teaching in the classroom. Best Practice Occupational Therapy for Children and Families in Community Settings, Second Edition contains many suggestions about how to practice the skills needed for evidence-based practice, making this the perfect resource for occupational therapy students, faculty, and practitioners who serve children and families.

This article presents a review of the research on the use of mobile touch-screen devices such as PDAs, iPod Touches, iPads and smart phones by people with developmental disabilities. Most of the research has been on very basic use of the devices as speech generating devices, as a means of providing video, pictorial and/or audio self-prompting and for leisure activities such as listening to music and watching videos. Most research studies were small-n designs that provided a preponderant level of research evidence. There is a clear need for more research with younger participants and with a much wider range of apps, including educational apps.

Public policy directives have emphasized Competitive Integrated Employment (CIE) as the primary employment outcome for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), yet their overall employment rates remain low. Supported Employment (SE) offers evidence-based vocational rehabilitation with personalized workplace support for CIE success. This study aims to predict CIE outcomes for youth and young adults with IDD by evaluating demographics, SE, and adjunctive state vocational rehabilitation agency (SVRA) services. Analyzing data from 67,884 individuals using hierarchical logistic regression, we found SE significantly associated with CIE success. Adjunctive SVRA services, including workplace support, job placement, and job search assistance, also played crucial roles. These findings emphasize SE's efficacy in helping youth and young adults with IDD achieve CIE, guiding vocational professionals.

This study investigates the alignment of Postsecondary Education (PSE) programs with Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) career demands for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) in the United States. Using a mixed methods design to explore what programs are offering STEM opportunities, a national survey was conducted with 56 PSE representatives, revealing 14 programs offering STEM experiences. Follow-up interviews provided insights into STEM pathways in these identified programs, emphasizing access to STEM for students with IDD, instruction on STEM skills and knowledge, support provided in STEM pathways, and the role of bias as a barrier to inclusion. The findings offer directions for future research on integrating STEM instruction and technical training in PSE programs for students with IDD while addressing barriers and supporting people with IDD.

To analyze needs and requirements of Pediatric Physical Therapists (PPTs), parents, children and adolescents with and without developmental disabilities in the future use of an activity monitor prototype (AM-p) in everyday clinical practice. Qualitative exploratory study with a thematic analysis approach, based on Braun and Clarke's six steps. Codes derived from the analysis and central themes were collated, based on Fleuren et al.'s groupings of determinants. We interviewed 25 PPTs, 12 parents, and 12 children and adolescents. Within four groupings of determinants, we found nine themes: 1) development of information materials; 2) application: output visualization and ease of use; 3) design; 4) relevance and acceptance; 5) shared decision-making; 6) compatibility in daily living; 7) finances, 8) time, and 9) legislation and regulations. End-users have similar basic needs, with individual fine-tuning to be addressed during further development of the AM-p. A child-friendly design, information material, and an easy-to-use application to read and interpret results, need to be developed. Efficient training for PPTs is important for the use of the AM-p and analysis of results. Communication between PPTs and children as well as parents enhances shared decision-making. We recommend involving diverse end-users to enable maximum customization of the AM-p.

As more individuals with intellectual/developmental disabilities are physically included in community life, in schools, neighborhoods, jobs, recreation, and congregations, the challenge of going beyond physical inclusion to true social inclusion becomes more apparent. This article summarizes the status of the research about community participation and social inclusion, summarizes some debates and points of contention, notes emerging research issues, and highlights needed areas of research. It is clear that most research on these topics has been conducted with individuals who are in paid formal services, and there are great needs for understanding the community participation of individuals who live on their own or with their families, as well as researching social inclusion by focusing on the attitudes and experiences of community members themselves, not just individuals with disabilities and paid providers.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of supported employment intervention on the employment outcomes of transition-age youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities served by the public vocational rehabilitation system using a case-control study design. Data for this study were extracted from the Rehabilitation Services Administration Case Service Report (RSA-911) database for fiscal year 2009. The sample included 23,298 youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities aged between 16 and 25 years old at the time of application. The classification and regression tree (CART) method was used to estimate propensity scores and to adjust for selection bias on the basis of all prominent covariates relevant to the dependent variable (i.e., competitive employment). Results yielded six homogeneous subgroups, and receipt of supported employment was found to increase the employment rates across all of the groups. The effect of supported employment was especially strong for youth who were Social Security beneficiaries, special education students, and individuals with intellectual disabilities or autism who were high school graduates. These findings suggest that supported employment is an effective service for enhancing the vocational rehabilitation outcomes of young adults and provides valuable information for policy makers, health care providers, rehabilitation counselors, and educators.

Organization-wide positive behavior support (OW-PBS) is a framework for improving quality of life and preventing challenging behaviors for children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). This tiered PBS framework has been adapted from schools for use in disability services. Supporting people with IDD involves a variety of services (family and home, independent living skills, supported employment, and day programs) and requires a values-based approach. Although the process of translating PBS from education to disability service organizations requires adaptations to the technical assistance tools and resources, the foundational implementation science drivers—and challenges—are analogous. In this article, the mechanisms for adapting the PBS framework into disability service organizations is discussed, with considerations for ensuring person-centered, culturally inclusive and responsive practices.

The COVID-19 epidemic caused disruption and dislocation in the lives of people with disabilities, their families, and providers. What we have learned during this period regarding the strengths and weaknesses of the service system for people with disabilities should provide a roadmap for building a more robust and agile system going forward. Based on a canvas of leaders in our field, I propose a way of outlining a reimagined system.

Learners with developmental disabilities often encounter difficulties in performing daily activities that involve digital platforms, operating systems, applications, and other digital tools. Considering the growing importance of digital literacy, we examined the effectiveness of the clustered forward chaining (CFC) procedure in teaching digital transaction skills to three adolescents with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). In the context of a multiple-baselines-across-skills design with between-participant replications, we taught participants four digital transaction tasks. The results showed that all participants acquired the four tasks during CFC and maintained their performance post-intervention. Two participants completed the intervention before all clusters were targeted, possibly due to observational learning and continuous performance probes. Furthermore, both the participants and the instructors found CFC to be an acceptable intervention for teaching digital literacy.