Diabetes Knowledge: What Do College Students Know

This study investigates students' knowledge about diabetes, with a focus on academic disciplines and gender. Data were collected from 218 students enrolled at a large public university. Descriptive statistics were employed, and factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) were performed. The results showed that, while participants seemed to have some knowledge about diabetes, they generally lacked specific content information about the disease. Female students outperformed male students in diabetes knowledge. Rehabilitation counselor educators can offer an invaluable service by covering the topic of diabetes in their courses and curricula. They can consider incorporating specific information about diabetes that can better prepare students as rehabilitation counseling professionals and informed citizens, while ensuring that male and female students have the same level of diabetes knowledge.

The Pedagogy of Rehabilitation Counseling: Perceptions of Rehabilitation Educators

The purpose of this study was to incorporate Bloom’s cognitive levels (Remembering/ Knowledge, Understanding/Comprehension, Applying/Application, Evaluating, and Creating/Synthesis) of understanding for rehabilitation counselor training programs. Forty rehabilitation counselor educators completed an online survey rating how important, how confident, and how frequently each participant incorporated the six learning domains of Bloom’s taxonomy within the classroom. The results indicate that rehabilitation counseling educators stated that they felt confident and that it is important to implement all the learning domains of Bloom’s taxonomy. Rehabilitation counseling educators indicated that application learning domain has the most impact on student learning. This study also provides implications and future directions to help discussion among rehabilitation counselor educators.

A Mixed Design Evaluation of an Interdisciplinary Transition Graduate Program

The authors describe the implementation and impact of a graduate-level transition personnel preparation program for transition specialists. This program was based on the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) standards for transition specialists. Over 200 special educators were prepared in a 2-year part-time graduate program where interdisciplinary, practice-based preparation was provided. Participants completed five courses and one practicum designed to prepare them to meet the standards for transition specialists. Competency ratings significantly improved after program completion. Focus group responses suggested that the program design had features that had major impact on the areas of policy, collaboration, and leadership. Collaboration and interdisciplinary activities emphasizing the roles of transition professionals were described throughout the article, showing how transition specialists, career/technical educators, and rehabilitation counselors are mutually supportive of youth with disabilities achieving postschool goals. The authors recommended further research on how this kind of preparation might be disseminated and replicated.

Community Reintegration of Long-Term Psychiatric Patients Through a Creative Arts Rehabilitation Therapy Group

After years of inpatient treatment in a locked facility, psychiatric patients who are preparing to transition to lower-security residential settings often benefit from bridging that continuum of care with supervised community excursions. In this study, facilitators and patients collaborated to identify and engage in a variety of arts-related experiences and settings in nearby cities and nature areas as a medium through which to help reconnect patients in a state psychiatric hospital with their surrounding community. Preliminary findings from data gathered included increased positive affect and quality of life, decreased feelings of isolation and institutionalization, more positive regard for treatment, and maintained or improved pace of patient progress toward discharge and community reintegration. Supervised therapeutic exposure to arts in the community appears to be an indicated clinical option to help motivate and prepare select psychiatric inpatients for community reintegration. As this is an information-sharing article regarding research-informed practice rather than the result of a research project, formal research is recommended as a next step to establish external validity and further the field’s knowledge of this topic.

Earning Capacity of Private Rehabilitation Counselors

The following study builds upon prior research on rehabilitation counseling salary surveys completed by the American Counseling Association (ACA), the Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification (CRCC), the International Association of Rehabilitation Professionals (IARP), and the American Board of Vocational Experts (ABVE). The present study examines the current state of salary distribution within the private sector of rehabilitation counseling by combining the data sets from the IARP and ABVE participants into one large sample for regression analyses. The survey was created by building on the existing ACA and CRCC salary surveys in the counseling field and refined with the assistance of a Delphi panel of 10 nationally known rehabilitation counselors with an average of 31 years clinical experience. The survey participants included 524 members of IARP and ABVE who completed the identical online survey to provide the data to examine the average annual earnings, demographics, and participants who experienced disabilities during their career within the two national organizations. Results found that gender, education level, practice setting, licensure status, and years in practice were statistically significant.

Development and Validation of a Scale of Negative Attitudes Toward COVID-19 With a Sample of People With Chronic Conditions and Disabilities

Health anxiety will increase as a result of COVID-19. Many people who feel vulnerable, including individuals with disabilities and chronic illnesses, may be more susceptible to stigmatize individuals who have an infection. Researchers in this study aimed to develop a measure of negative attitudes toward COVID-19 among people with disabilities and chronic illnesses to better understand how stigmatization, which can cause negative outcomes, plays a role in individuals with disabilities' response to COVID-19. The study was conducted with 269 participants with any disability or chronic illness in which all completed the online questionnaire. To examine the psychometric properties of the COVID-19 Negative Attitudes Scale (COVID-19 NAS), an exploratory factor analyses, confirmatory factor analyses, reliability analysis, and correlation were conducted. In addition, concurrent validity was assessed through correlations with participants' stress related to COVID-19, depression and anxiety, and resilience. Exploratory factor analyses demonstrated that COVID-19 NAS is a unidimensional scale. Confirmatory factor analysis results confirmed the one dimensionality of the scale. Our findings indicate that the COVID-19 NAS could be a valuable tool in assessing negative attitudes toward COVID-19 for people with chronic conditions and disabilities.

Effective Job Supports to Improve Employment Outcomes for Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder

The unemployment rate of those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is staggeringly low. The low number of those with ASD in the competitive workforce can be connected to the complex and sometimes severe manifestations of the disorder. However, there are many supports and accommodations that individuals with ASD can use in order to alleviate the stress of finding and maintaining competitive employment. Natural supports can be provided through supportive supervisors, informed coworkers, and on-the-job trainings. Vocational rehabilitation services are provided in order to assess, prepare, and support individuals with ASD through their employment. Lastly, job modifications are used to alleviate any stressors that an employee with ASD may experience on the job. In this literature it was found that natural supports, vocational rehabilitation services, and job modifications were effective in improving the employment outcomes for individuals with ASD. Rehabilitation counselors can use the information found in this literature review to inform employers of successful and effective job supports for employees with ASD.

Predicting Physical Activity Behavior Change Among Individuals Living With Severe Mental Illness

Individuals living with a severe mental illness (SMI) have an increased risk of comorbid health conditions, many of which can be attributed to unhealthy lifestyle habits and medication side effects. The purpose of the present study is to examine health behavior theories including the social cognitive theory, self-determination theory, and theory of planned behavior in an effort to predict individuals living with SMI's stage of change (SOC) relating to physical activity (PA). Each theory focuses on important theoretical behavior changing components, such as selfefficacy, autonomy, and intention. The sample of this study includes 60 people with SMI from an assertive community treatment (ACT) program in a large Midwestern city. The results indicated that individual outcome expectations may be the proximal predictor of SOC, although significant relationships were found between SOC, self-efficacy, autonomy, and intentions as well. Future research should focus on the value of positive beliefs about the benefits of PA as that was found to be significant predictor regarding individuals with SMI and their readiness to engage in PA.