Career Development and Career Design

This work has offered us the opportunity to delve into issues pertaining to career development and Life Design of children with and without intellectual disability from infancy to adolescence from a positive and strength-based perspective. This chapter underlines the limited number of studies available in the literature in the field of career and Life Design involving children and adolescents with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Results from studies involving children and adolescents without disability clearly suggest the relevance of devoting more efforts to depicting a positive mindset could have on career and life outcomes as well as the relevance of dimensions stressed by the Life Design approach, such as career adaptability, preparedness, and courage. Additionally, the emphasis on preventive actions aimed at stimulating better knowledge of the world of work and introducing information about prerequisites of career resources appear promising both for children with disability and their peers without disability. In a changing labor market exemplified by decreased employment opportunities, diminished job security, anticipated and unanticipated transitions, fast-changing technology, and an increase in personal responsibility for keeping up with an evolving body of knowledge in one’s field of specialization, these approaches and an early start become critically important. Finally, increasing the awareness of contextual supports, such as teachers and family members, as well as services providers and employers, about these issues and investing resources to adequately prepare them to build a culture of work inclusion in their normal contexts of life is critical to career development. Also, career counselors should be trained to adequately work on career and life development issues in an inclusive perspective, focusing on young people with and without disabilities as capable of performing meaningful work. More attention must be paid to increasing knowledge and skills about disability to contribute to a culture of inclusion (Soresi, Nota, Ferrari, & Sgaramella, 2013).