Thursday, July 2, 2015

Adults With Intellectual Disabilities And Addressing Their Minimal Employment Opportunities

By Edna Booker


Folks afflicted with intellectual disabilities have many challenges because of their conditions. They include omnipresent difficulties in gaining paying employment to support themselves. The government spends billions of dollars in programs intended to enable adults with intellectual disabilities gain employment. Despite this in the United States, an excess of half of such adults are currently either not working or are searching for employment unsuccessfully.

The SSA or Social Security Administration programs benefit intellectually challenged people. These are those impaired in cognitive or communicative functions, those with low levels of IQ and those with serious impairments in social or personal functions. Administration in Social Security programs provide vital lifelines to such people.

In the event a person has intellectual disabilities and has difficulty gaining access to Social Security Administration benefits, a Portsmouth VA disability rights lawyer can give assistance in pursuing their claims. Such an attorney can help with the initial application or in making an appeal against a termination or denial of disability benefits.

Recent research has it that only forty-four percent of the adults with cerebral infirmities are in the labour force, either seeking employment or working. An even smaller number, thirty-four percent have actual jobs currently. This a lot lower than the seventy-three percent able working adults within the workforce. Twenty-eight percent of working age adults defined as disabled have never held a job entirely.

It is natural to expect that only a few intellectually challenged people have jobs compared to normal people. However, the troubling dilemma of these figures arises from the little progress attained in getting the disabled into employment. This is despite the government huge expenditure. Studies reveal that the percentage of intellectually challenged adults in the workforce has remained stagnant for four decades.

The term disabled is broad in defining the types of these disabilities in people in the workplace. It usually identifies people with a seventy-five IQ or lower. It defines people having limited basic life abilities such as handling money. It identifies people afflicted by such mind maladies as autism and Down syndrome.

Given a chance, adults with mind challenges may perform certain jobs well. Research has shown sixty-two percent of the disabled working in competitive environments have been working for longer than three years. This means that if more efforts were directed towards getting disabled adults employed, they would contribute towards their self-support or dependence reduction. Expecting low performances from intellectually disabled persons is a problem needing address. These employees usually face segregation in their workplaces. This denies them progress opportunities while making it hard for them attain new skills. These obstacles must be seriously addressed.

Until most adults having intellectual disabilities have access to gainful employment, they will retain dependence to Social Security Administration disability benefits for their financial support. These benefits could be enough to cater for most adults. However, they have limitations based on past income and state maximums.




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