Neurodevelopmental Disabilities and Employment: Helping Learners Prepare for Social Demands in the Workplace

This book provides a comprehensive curriculum on essential job-related social skills that will aid educators, job coaches, behavior specialists, behavior analysts, and other professionals to improve employment outcomes of individuals with autism spectrum disorder and other neurodevelopmental disabilities.

The curriculum guides instructors through an objective behavioral assessment of critical, social, and problem-solving skills, and provides a framework for identifying individualized, effective teaching strategies using a response-to-intervention approach. This book will present a vocational social skills curriculum that is divided into two parts: The Vocational Social Skills Assessment Protocol (VSSA) and the VSS Intervention Protocol (VSSI). Chapters explore skills such as conducting the VSSA and VSSI, collecting data for the VSSA, and interpreting VSSA and VSSI results.

With a focus on evidence-based interventions that may be practical for supervisors to implement on the job site, this curriculum is designed to foster positive relations in the workplace and promote long-term employment.

Dorothea C. Lerman, Ph.D., is a Professor of Behavior Analysis at the University of Houston – Clear Lake, where she directs the master’s program in behavior analysis and serves as Director of the Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities.