Vocational Skills

One of our missions here at AdaptEd is focusing on helping to build successful futures beyond the classroom for individuals with special needs. The reality is, school is only a part of their life, and it’s important to remember that many children with special needs generally grow into adults who still have special needs. That’s why we LOVE designing and making resources that work on and build vocational skills. So what exactly are vocational and pre-vocational skills? 

Learning pre-vocational skills typically builds toward a general set of skills like time management, responsibility, and personal hygiene/appearance, which are important for most aspects of life. On the other hand, vocational skills are more targeted skills specific to obtaining and being successful at a job or work (i.e. interview skills, arriving to work on time, listening to a boss, etc.). 

Ideally, with enough practice and attention on pre-vocational skills, students will reach high school having mastered enough to start focusing on vocational skills in order to prepare themselves for a future career or profession!

Even though the numbers are improving each year, the percentage of persons with disabilities between the ages of 16-64 who are employed was still only thirty percent in 2019, with 32% of those employed part-time. With approximately 30.5 million people with disabilities between the ages of 16 and 64 living in the United States, that’s over 21 MILLION people with disabilities in that same age group who are unemployed.

Needless to say, teaching and learning vocational and pre-vocational skills has a profoundly substantial impact on the ability of people with special needs to enter the job market as they become adults. Which is why we’ve devoted countless hours of research and development into creating amazing resources that build the pre-vocational and vocational skills necessary for students with disabilities to not only earn, but KEEP, a job.

Starting with our social narratives that illustrate the importance of behavior norms, personal hygiene, and more… and ending with our “on the job” vocational skill-building activity sets, we’ve got the perfect resource for every one, no matter where they are on their career path. And we are ALWAYS developing, fine-tuning, and innovating what we do to meet the ever-growing and changing needs of people with special needs to ensure that they have an independent and successful future!

Related Categories: Adapted Books, Life Skills, Phonics, Vocational Skills, Task Bins, Task Cards, Social Narratives, Touch Point Math