Aligning career services with the needs of students with learning disabilities

By Michael Ford

While studying at my mostly deserted university campus recently, another student asked if I was a professor, a question I get a lot as a mature student. The fact I am often older than my professors may have something to do with this, but that’s another story. After clarifying that I was a graduate student, he expressed how much trouble he was having since the pandemic forced classes online, in part because he was unable to connect in the same way with professors.

For many students, that wouldn’t be a problem. But for this earnest young gentleman, who was on the autism spectrum, it mattered greatly that he couldn’t be face-to-face with instructors and students and was no longer receiving the support and accommodations he had become accustomed to. In the process of researching and writing a paper on learning disabilities, I wondered what impact the pandemic might be having on his career development and students like him. Although he may feel alone, he actually has lots of company; among Canadian youth aged 15–24, learning disabilities are the second-most common type of disability, just slightly behind mental health-related disabilities (Statistics Canada, 2017).

A disproportionate impact

It’s no secret that COVID-19 forced all educational institutions to adjust both teaching practices and student services such as career education. A survey by the Student Experience in the Research University Consortium – an academic and policy research collaboration – revealed that the pandemic has affected the well-being of students with disabilities at a disproportionate rate in multiple ways (Soria et al., 2020). Specifically, they are less likely than students without disabilities to feel like they belong and that they have been supported by their institution, among other challenges and hardships.

Addressing this disparity and inequity requires a system-wide approach. Considering that a student’s well-being largely depends on future plans and their career path, career practitioners have a role to play in this response.

Helping all students recover

As for how the career profession can help disabled clients recover from the pandemic, a recent international survey of career practitioners and policy makers in 93 countries identified issues around inclusion, access to in-person and digital services and individualizing solutions (Cedefop et al, 2020). Even before the pandemic, however, individuals with learning disabilities suffered greater unemployment and underemployment and were disadvantaged in their career progression (Chen, 2021).

To respond to the needs of this population, researchers such as Charles Chen (University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education) refer to the unique career development needs of learning-disabled students. For those working with these clients, inside or outside post-secondary institutions, it is now even more paramount that they adapt career exploration and decision-making practices and resources to diverse learners, reach out to a greater share of the learning-disabled population, better connect career planning to well-being, develop a relationship of trust so that more clients disclose their disabilities, promote a strength-focused rather than deficit-focused approach with clients, help clients develop self-efficacy beliefs and direct clients toward a greater awareness of their personal capacities.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get the name or contact information of the student I met on campus, so I am unable to find out if things improved for him as he became more acclimated to the new ways of learning. I can only hope that those in career development serving him and his peers with learning disabilities continue to educate themselves about learning disabilities and become better at helping all students achieve their full potential. A good place to start for further information is the Learning Disabilities Association of Canada.

Michael Ford is an MA student in educational psychology at Simon Fraser University (SFU) and is also an instructor in SFU’s Career Development Practitioner program. Michael is particularly interested in the shifting dynamics and trends of the workplace and jobs, labour market information, work/life transition and the future of work in times of uncertainty and rapid technological change. This past January, he co-presented at CERIC’s Cannexus21 conference in a session titled “Hindsight is 2020: Youth Transition in Uncertain Times.” Prior to returning to school, Michael assembled a long and diverse career in communications, business and the arts.

References

Cedefop; European Commission; ETF; ICCDPP; ILO; OECD; UNESCO (2020). Career guidance policy and practice in the pandemic: results of a joint international survey – June to August 2020. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. http://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2801/318103

Chen, C. P. (2021). Career counselling university students with learning disabilities. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 49(1), 44–56. https://doi.org/10.1080/03069885.2020.1811205

Soria, K. M., Horgos, B., Chirikov, I., & Jones-White, D. (2020). The experiences of undergraduate students with physical, learning, neurodevelopmental, and cognitive disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. SERU Consortium, University of California – Berkeley and University of Minnesota.17

Statistics Canada. (2017). Canadian Survey on Disability. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/181128/dq181128a-eng.htm