Interventions for Transition-Age Youth with Disabilities: A Meta-analysis

In recent years, there has been an emphasis on preparing students with disabilities for the transition from high school to adulthood. Despite these efforts, students with disabilities still have difficulties entering employment and university settings. Therefore, it is important to know which interventions actually benefit students.

I conducted a meta-analysis, which is a method of combining results from several studies, to see which types of interventions are most promising. I focused on interventions designed for high school students diagnosed with autism, intellectual disability, or severe/multiple disabilities. To find as many studies as possible on this topic, I searched academic journal articles for relevant reports and reached out to researchers about any data they collected on interventions for high school students with disabilities. I found 19 reports or datasets, and coded these for the type of intervention that was used and the characteristics of the students that were included in the study.

Occupational Therapy/Physical Therapy (OT/PT) interventions improved students’ gross motor abilities, such as running, walking, or jumping. However, these same interventions did not impact students’ physical characteristics (for example, height and weight). Social cognitive interventions, or interventions that teach students the exact steps needed to engage with others, did not positively impact the social behavior of the participants. Lastly, it was not possible to synthesize other approaches, such as Behavioral, Interactional, or Person-Centered Planning interventions because there were not enough studies that have been conducted with transition-age youth with disabilities.

Although OT/PT interventions are important for many students with disabilities, these interventions do not necessarily prepare high school students for the experiences they will have in adulthood. I found very few studies of high school interventions that focused on important adult life skills such as employment and self-determination. The lack of available research makes it difficult to inform parents, teachers, and special education coordinators about the best practices for students with disabilities preparing to transition to adulthood. Overall, researchers should conduct better quality intervention studies that focus on transition related outcomes, and determine which intervention types are effective for individual students.