Final Research Project

Research Question: After high school graduation, how can Autistic adults benefit and progress
throughout their lifetime from enrolling into autism adult programs and services?

Allard, Deborah. "Getting Skills to Transition in Life Pays Off for Area Residents with

Developmental Disabilities." Taunton Daily Gazette [MA] 3 Oct. 2016: A1. NewsBank.

Web. 10 Oct. 2016.

This article discusses different programs provided by Massachusetts Department of

Developmental Services that benefit autistic adults graduating high school. The Bristol
Community College helps autistic young adults continue their education by taking core, health,
and elective courses as well as get involved in a major of their choosing accommodated for their
needs such as theater, art and paralegal. In the last year of this program, the student is able to
complete an internship. The Community Connections program is offered to teach students about
skills used in everyday life such as cooking and communicating with others in public areas. The
author, Deborah Allard, has a Bachelors degree in Mass Communications from Bryant
University and has been a news reporter for The Herald News for many years. Allard provides
citations throughout her article stating the names of those she interviewed as well as their
expertise, such as their profession, on autism and development services. There does not appear to
be any bias within the article. Published in October 2016, this article provides current services
for young adults leaving high school which relates to my research question. This news report is
relevant to my research question because it provides different programs for autistic adults to help
them accomplish new skills not always provided in high schools that they can apply to their daily
life and employment opportunities.

Carpenter, Siri. "Disconnected" Science News 21 Feb. 2015: 16-20. Academic Search Complete.

Web. 15 Sept. 2016.

The author Siri Carpenter is a science freelance journalist who has written for many different
journals, a former magazine editor, as well as has her own online publication. Since Carpenter is
a freelance journalist, she is not the most qualified source for the basis of a research paper.
Carpenter does though provide many citations throughout her article giving credit to information
she found or giving credit to those interviewed. There does not appear to be any potential bias in
Carpenters article. The main purpose of Carpenters article is to shed light on how there are few
programs, services, and employment opportunities once an autistic individual is in adulthood.
Carpenter shares studies and other statistical information about how adult autistic programs can
help these adults learn, grow and continue to progress after high school. The content of this
article is relevant for my research question because I am interested in learning about the ways
autistic adults can continue their lives with the rest of the social world and progress after they
have completed high school. The article was written on February 21, 2015 which means that is
about two years old which is still recent enough for me to answer my research question. Since
there are limited resources for autistic adults and studies about these adults after high school, a
two-year old article has no impact on the research question.

Nelson, Gabe. "Bittersweet Farms Sows Inspiration: Lucas County Autism Facility Serves as

Model." The Blade [Toledo, Ohio] 1 June, 2008: n. pag. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 28

Sept. 2016.

The main purpose of this article is to share how the lack of autism programs once individuals
turn twenty-two years old is approached by Ohios Bittersweet Farms to provide support for
autistic adults. The Bittersweet Farms allow autistic adults to be residents of the farm, providing
them with different jobs and daily tasks with the help of supervisors in a community that
understands and accommodates their disabilities. Nelson has his Bachelors degree in Arts,
Political Science from the University of Michigan as well as a Masters degree of Business
Administration from Georgetown University. Nelson has been a reporter for Automotive News
and Greenwire. Even though Nelson may not be an authoritative source for autism, he does have
experience in reporting and provides in-text citations for the sources of information provided
throughout his article. There does not appear to be any bias within Nelsons article. This article is
relevant for my research question concerning programs that can benefit autistic adults because
this article is about a supportive, adult program for autistic individuals after graduating high
school that is designed to help educate daily life skills as well as provide an accommodated,
autistic-friendly environment. The article was written in June of 2008 which is reasonable for my
research question because adult programs, such as the Bittersweet Farms, can be hard to come by
because there is not a booming number, currently, of endless adult programs for individuals with
autism.

Taylor, Julie Lounds, and Marsha Mailick Seltzer. "Changes In The Autism Behavioral

Phenotype During The Transition To Adulthood." Journal Of Autism And Developmental

Disorders 40.12 (2010): 1431-1446. ERIC. Web. 08 Oct. 2016.

The main purpose of this article is to emphasize the lack of adequate adult day centers and
activities for the autistic population leading to a decreased and/or no further improvement of
autism symptoms and challenges once leaving high school. Taylor and Seltzer conducted a
longitudinal study lasting almost a decade on ten year old and older autistic children as they
continued into a high school setting then on into young adulthood. The study shows autistic
individuals have increased improvements throughout their high school years, but after leaving
high school these improvements either stopped or decreased due to the lack of intensive and
educational programs these individuals received prior to entering adulthood. Taylor has a B.A. in
psychology, M.A. and Ph.D. in Development Psychology, as well as a Post-Doc degree in
Lifespan Family Research. Taylor is a member of the American Association on Intellectual and
Developmental Disabilities, American Psychological Association, and International Society for
Autism Research displaying her knowledge of autism spectrum disorders as well as other mental
disorders making her a trustworthy source. Seltzer has B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-
Madison as well as a Ph.D. in Social Welfare from Brandeis University. Seltzer is the Vice
Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. There
does not appear to be any bias in this article and citations as well as a bibliography are provided
in the article. This scholarly article was published in April of 2010 which is fairly recent
information considering many current young autistic adults educated psychologists and other
researchers about autism spectrum disorder when they were children. This source is beneficial to
my research question because this article shows how the lack of autism programs for adults can
hinder their ability to learn and to improve so they can live with a better quality of life. This
study provides evidence that greater quality programs used for autistic toddlers, children, and
adolescents still needs to be provided for adults or else these accomplished improvements made
throughout their first twenty years of life could diminish.

Turcotte, Paul, et al. Service Needs Across the Lifespan for Individuals with Autism. Journal

of Autism and Developmental Disorders 46.7 (2016): 2480-2489. PubMed-Medline.

Web. 20 Aug. 2016.

The main purpose of the journal article is to determine the specific service needs for autistic
children, adolescents and adults. While defining the specific needs over the lifespan of autistic
individuals, the authors emphasize the difference between availability/usage of adult services,
which is considerably low, and the abundance of services available for young autistic children
and adolescents. This article provides evidence that autistic adults need continuous, life-long
service needs which often stop once entering adulthood. Three of the authors, including Paul
Turcotte, are part of the A.J. Drexel Autism Institute, which is an autism research organization
and are also part of the ASERT Collaborative which is a supportive website for Pennsylvanian
families with an autistic family member(s). One of the five authors, Eugene Brusilovskiy, is a
part of the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences at Temple University, while the last author,
Stacy L. Nonnemacher, is a part of the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services. There does
not appear to be any bias within this scholarly journal article. The content of this article is
relevant to my research question because it provides evidence that autistic adults still need a
continued availability of special services just as autistic children and adolescents need them. The
types of needs can vary between the three age groups, but the services providing these needs do
not need to come to a halt once an autistic individual enters adulthood. This article describes the
types of services and special help autistic adults need as well as the negative impact on autistic
adults due to the diminished availability of adult services and programs. Written in April of
2016, this article provides up-to-date information concerning my research question, emphasizing
the current need for autistic adult programs and the length of time that has passed without a
concentration on autistic adults.

Wehman, Paul, et al. "Project SEARCH For Youth With Autism Spectrum Disorders: Increasing

Competitive Employment On Transition From High School." Journal Of Positive

Behavior Interventions 15.3 (2013): 144-155. ERIC. Web. 08 Oct. 2016.

This article discusses a transition program called Project SEARCH for autistic adults as they
prepare to leave high school and enter the adult world to continue their learning. High schools
develop partnerships with businesses that allow autistic students to intern during their senior year
in order for these students to learn different occupational skills to prepare them for the future
beyond high school. The head author, Paul Wehman, has a Ph.D. in Behavioral
Disabilities/Rehabilitation Psychology from the University of Wisconsin and is a professor for
Counseling and Special Education at Virginia Commonwealth University. Wehman received the
Distinguished Service Award from the Presidents Committee on Employment for Persons with
Disabilities and is considered a fellow of different psychological organizations. The other
authors included in this article are professors at the Virginia Commonwealth University which
Masters and Ph.Ds. relating to autism, research, rehabilitation, and psychology. Jennifer
McDonough is an executive search consultant and helps organize developments for many
research projects including the Project SEARCH. There does not appear to be any bias in this
article and also claimed within the article by the authors are no conflicts of interest. This article
was released in 2013 providing recent information for my research question. This article is
relevant to my research question because it describes an effective mechanism to help autistic
adolescents improve their learning to possibly obtain a form of independence as well as involve
the community in aiding autistic individuals. This report also illustrates evidence that some
autistic adults have the capability of being good employees despite their disabilities. This project
keeps autistic adults involved in the world just as elementary, middle, and high schools do
providing real-life skills and social interactions.
 Research Reflection

Before taking Library 101, I never constructed a Concept Web to discover the various
ways I could go about my general topic then choosing the best major concepts. Many times I
would write a research paper on the first correlation of my general topic that came to mind which
would sometimes decrease the quality of my paper. Another mistake I always made was using
Google to find articles about my research topic instead the USC Articles and Databases. Using
Google to find adequate sources would take me hours to search through and did not always give
the best sources.

My research question, After high school graduation, how can Autistic adults benefit and
progress throughout their lifetime from enrolling into autism adult programs and services? did
not change throughout my research. I did not change my research question because it was narrow
enough to keep me on the right track, but it was not too narrow to be unable to find enough
sources. To keep my research narrow I focused on autistic adults, rather than children since there
is abundant research on autistic children, and I also focused on after high school graduation
which is when families and health professionals realize the new concern for autism: how do they
function in the adult world?

When trying to locate a scholarly journal article using a subject-specific database is when
my search strategy started to give me trouble. I picked the subject of Psychology and used the
PubMed-Medline database, which was a great database but the problem was with my search
terms. I began my search by typing into the search box Autism AND Develop* Service*
AND Adult*. A lot of the results I received were too broad, not related to my specific
question about autism, or completely not related to autism at all. Within the mixture of results I
found articles about autism that was similar to my research question but not exactly on target.
When I clicked on these articles, I would then click on a link that read Similar Articles. Using
this hyperlink helped narrow my results more and I began to look at the keywords of each
scholarly article. The most useful keyword I found that then helped me with the rest of my
research was Transition to Adulthood. I then changed my text in the search bar to Autism
AND Transition to Adult* which helped me find better sources for my question.

For my next research assignment I will first draw out a Concept Web so I can see the
many options I could write about my general topic then decide which major concepts would be
more interesting and unique to conduct a research paper on. I will also use the Concept Web to
narrow down my topic to be more specific, but not too narrow, helping me find adequate
sources. I will also use the USC Articles and Databases to find informative and reliable sources
to help me construct a better research paper.