The outcome of secondary education resulting in successful transition from school to employment, postsecondary education, and community living has been one of the greatest concerns of special education professionals and parents of students with disabilities. Young adults with disabilities achieve limited outcomes as they leave school and attempt to access employment and postsecondary education. Some of the essential problems associated with these limitations are inadequate information for employment and access to postsecondary education and insufficient collaboration among professionals, parents and community leaders. This problem can be anticipated to be enormous in the case of young adults with disabilities who have limited English-proficiency.

This project proposes to study issues in improving accessibility to appropriate postsecondary education and the meaningful and successful employment for Asian-American young adults with disabilities. This project will enhance the access to postsecondary education and employment for Asian-American young adults with disabiliities through the understanding of their unique needs and expectations in their future planning and the understanding of attitudes for Asian-American community leaders and business owners toward them.

This project will attempt

• to supply resource information in Asian languages on postsecondary education and employment
• to explore the attitudes of Asian-American community leaders and business owners toward employment of young adults with disabilities,
• to test a means of increasing access to information about postsecondary education and employment services for Asian-American young adults with disabilities,
• to provide appropriate accommodations in the postsecondary education and the employment settings including effective use of the computer technology, and
• to investigate the degree to which their needs in accessing postsecondary education and employment have been met. Participants of this proposed project are 30 Asian-Ameriican families with young adults between 16 and 30 years of age with disabilities.

Thirty families from six Asian-American groups will be recruited from local school districts and Asian-American community leaders announcing through radio and TV broadcasting systems which are targeting specific Asian ethnocultural groups in the greater LA area. About 200 community leaders and business owners from the six Asian cultural subgroups in the metro area also will be invited to take part in the project; attitude survey, employment placement, and dissemination process.

The ultimate goal of this project is to empower Asian-American young adults with disabilities to take active roles in the employment planning in their ethnic groups and in accessing to appropriate postsecondary education for the future advancement in the job. The project will produce the resource brochures for Asian-American young adults with disabilities and their parents in six different Asian languages. The resource brochures will include information about available employment services in ethnic groups, contact person, community involvment, and how to get involved in employment planning and enrolled in postsecondary education institutes. This project will also equip local education professionals with important information for appropriate and effective employment planning. It includes the knowledge of unique needs and expectations of Asian - American young adults and their parents, differences in the cultural values, and Asian-American community leaders and business owners attitudes and understanding of young adults with disabilities.

Technical reports and peer reviewed journal articles prepared as final products of this project will provide invaluable information to the professionals who are facing similar problems of language barriers with Asian-American students and their parents.

The project will be conducted in three years:

• Year 1, a descriptive study will be conducted to study attitude and understanding of Asian-American community leaders and business owners toward young adults with disabilities in California. Employment resource brochures will be developed, revised, translated, and printed for dissemination,
• Year 2, interview research will be conducted to investigate employment needs and expcetations of Asian-American students and their parents. Assessment of fifteen Asian-American young adults for employment will be conducted. Ethnically matched job placement and on-the-job training will be provided and matching appropriate postsecondary education institutes,
• Year 3, assessment of another fiteen Asian-American young adults for employment will be conducted.

Ethnically matched job placement and on-the-job training will be provided. Intensive dissemination to the consumers in the local communities will be focused. Qualitative and quantitative evaluation will be conducted to examine the impact of transition information provided in Asian languages, the most effective channel communicating to Asian parents, and the increase of Asian-American community leaders and business owners positive attitudes toward young adults with disabilities.

The most effective model of transition services for Asian-American students with disabilities will be developed and training materials will be developed. As intensive dissemination and evaluation of the final results of the project, the toll-free phone system will be used for the dissemination of the employment resource information and follow-up services to guide Asian-American parents who cannot speak English with their further questions.