Throughout my placement, my organization is concerned about securing a job for autistic adults and ensuring that they are working with minimal behavioral problems. I have always wondered how beneficial is it for autistic adults to be working in an environment where they are surrounded by people who are not autistic. During my placement, I have observed that many autistic individuals have a problem with social interaction and communication, demonstrating repetitive behaviors, dysfunctional attachment to routines, and sensitivity to touch, noise, smell, and taste (SAAAC, 2011). So for the purpose of this research, I want to know if their day school at our organization is helping them to adapt to a work environment, where they know what to and not to do. Even though I will not be observing them physically at their workplace, I will be able to observe them at my organization where we get them to host events with minimal assistance. We get them to treat their task as a given job in a real workforce environment.
Background
The organization where I am doing my placement is called the South Asian Autistic Awareness Centre, also known as SAAAC. SAAAC was initiated in 2008, in response to the growing need for awareness and support for individuals, who comes from South Asian families, that are affected by autism spectrum disorder. They are helping around 300 South Asian families with a variety of programs to help individuals diagnosed with autism. The organization receives funds through donations and government funds to help improve its facility by providing all the necessary care, tools and needs for autistic adults and children. With the help of the funds, recently they were able to add a sensory room for the autistic individuals to help them relax or be calm. SAAAC is focused on helping autistic adults who come from different South Asian ethnic backgrounds. Based on my observation, I would say there are a majority of Sri Lankan, Indian, and Pakistani autistic individuals. Since I work with autistic adults, I would say their age group is around 16 to the age of 26, where a majority of them are males and there are just two females based on the two days that I have volunteered there. There are four males in total who are verbal and can comprehend what we are saying but out of all of them, there is one male, who is autistic but also diagnosed with psychosis. The socio-geographical location of the organization is located within Scarborough, which is an urbanized neighborhood. I would say that the people who are living around that area can be a mix of middle, low, and wealthy income family. Based on the demographics on statistics of Canada there are mixed of different racial-ethnic backgrounds but there are a majority of individuals who are from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, India, and other parts of the Eastern world who lives around Scarborough (Statistics Canada, 2016). Lastly, I think it is important to carry out this research because it gives new insight to many individuals to understand why it is important to give importance to adults diagnosed with autism to help secure a job for them. Even though they are autistic they are capable of working in a real-life work environment with a great support system. We should help them find a job and help them to adapt to their behavioral challenges.
Our goal is to provide them with employment where they can work independently as an employee within a workforce (Garcia-Villamisar et al, 2007). There are studies where it has shown that individuals who are living with autism are being encouraged through employment can enhance their quality of life and also bring out positive work outcomes (Baker-Ericzén et al, 2018). Many adults were diagnosed with autism at a young age or even later on, they did have the opportunity to attend a day school to have disciplined their behaviors and to work on their speaking and listening skills. There is research showing that there is an increase in poor social outcomes among adults living with autism (Howlin, 2013) since they were not many organizations to help individuals with autism. Overall, an individual with a disability has the right to work in the workforce freely so that they can be secured stable employment since they are not any different from a person without a disability (Scott et al, 2017). Objective and Research The main objective of my research is to focus on enhancing better employment opportunities for autistic adults. The three potential research questions that I want to work around are: 1. Do South Asian adults, who are diagnosed with autism, have the opportunity to work out in the real world, based on their circumstances? 2. If so, what is being done to control certain behaviors of the individual with autism in a work environment and how is it being controlled? 3. How can we make their work environment better for them to adapt to?
Theoretical Framework
For my research, I would like to focus on the medical and social model of disability to help form a better research paper. First off, autism is defined as an impairment within the individual where their social, cognitive, and emotional aspects are being affected (Solomon et al, 2004). The medical model of disability is defined as seeing an individual with a disability as a problem, where they are not seen as “normal” but rather as “abnormal” (Kapp et al, 2013) It is socially and politically constructed, where it is characterized by systematic barriers (Sisti, 2015). The disability model creates social inequality, where the person, who is disabled, becomes a part of a minority group that is ignored by society (Waldschmidt, 2017). The social model of disability is different from the medical model, where they label the person disabled by the attitude and the structure of the society (Fenech et al, 2016). Based on these two theories I want to see how this greatly impacts the adults with autism within the real-life world, in terms of the workplace.
Methods
I will be doing participant observation throughout the duration of my placement. With participant observation, I am able to observe the culture of autism by observing their expressions, and the way they communicate and observe what kind of activities gets them focused to see which kind of work environment they would be working best at. I will be observing four kinds of the function of behaviors, i.e. attention seeking, escape/avoidance, access to tangible items, and automatic/self-stimulatory. I started my placement in November and will be doing a participant observation for 100 hours, which will give me enough time to gather my data by doing field notes. I will be working with the autistic adults one on one to encourage them to good behaviors by formulating discipline around them. I will be completing my participant observation by March 18 and working on my final paper by April 22.
Ethics
Since I am working with adults who have autism, it can be very hard for me to make them understand the purpose of my research and for me to get them to sign off the consent form. Autism is diagnosed in individuals where it can impact their social skills since the majority of the individual cognitive skills and speaking skills are impacted (Russell, 2012). At my placement, I would say one or two individuals are capable of understanding the consent form, whereas the rest will not understand what it means. Some researchers have stated that adults that are diagnosed with autism can be seen as the “hard-to-reach” population (Haas et al, 2016). The adults who are living with autism are not capable of understanding what a consent form means or even understanding the kind of research we are conducting. So in order to get a consent form signed, we would have to get the signatures from their parents but since they are in a vulnerable state, no parent would want us to use their children for the sole purpose of our study. Significance of Research This research is important to my organization, to the community, and especially to adults with autism to help them seek employment. It is important to help people with autism to find a job and also to ensure that they can go out in the real world. I, personally, find with minimal assistance, adults with autism can work in the real world. With great support and encouragement, their behaviors can be improved to the point where they can comprehend their tasks, ensure that their breaks are given when required, and have them use their words to communicate their needs. By providing the necessary support and encouragement, every adult with autism will be given a chance to seek employment once their autistic behavioral disorder is managed.