Interdisciplinary Professional Development Needs of Transition Professionals Serving Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

VOCATIONAL rehabilitation; CONCEPTUAL structures; STATISTICAL correlation; FACTOR analysis; HEALTH care teams; INTERDISCIPLINARY education; RESEARCH methodology; NONPARAMETRIC statistics; PSYCHOLOGY of People with disabilities; PROFESSIONAL employee training; QUESTIONNAIRES; RESEARCH evaluation; SCALE analysis (Psychology); SELF-evaluation; T-test (Statistics); QUALITATIVE research; JOB performance; QUANTITATIVE research; SOCIOECONOMIC factors; TRANSITIONAL programs (Education); REHABILITATION of autistic people; DATA analysis software; DESCRIPTIVE statistics; MANN Whitney U Test; KRUSKAL-Wallis Test; ONE-way analysis of variance

The study examined perceived interdisciplinary needs of transition professionals, across roles and levels of practice, who support youth with autism spectrum disorders in special education and public state-federal vocational rehabilitation (VR) systems. Self-reported transition and autism-specific competencies of 147 professionals working in these fields across the U.S. were collected using a newly developed instrument, Interdisciplinary Transition and Autism Competencies Survey. Results indicated statistically significantly different ratings of understanding for transition specific competencies between levels of practice, experience, and professional roles. Additionally, field-specific gaps in knowledge and skills were documented. Implications for interdisciplinary professional development and future research were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]