Supported employment improves cognitive performance in adults with Autism

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a supported employment programme on measures of executive functions for 44 adults with autism, assessed at the beginning and the end of the programme period. The average length of time of the community employment was 30 months.

Based on their predominant work activity over the study period, participants were classified into two groups: supported employment and unemployed. At the start of the programme, the groups did not differ on any of the cognitive measures.

Repeated measures analysis of variance (anova) demonstrated that by the end of the programme, the supported employment group showed higher scores for executive functions on variables of CANTAB (Spatial Span Task--span length recalled; Spatial Working Memory Task--strategy; Planning task 'Stockings of Cambridge'--problems solved in minimum moves; Planning task 'Stockings of Cambridge'--mean planning time) and other tasks such as Trail Making Test - part B, time; Matching Familiar Figures (first answer and errors). In contrast, the unemployed group showed no change over time in their cognitive performance.

Results of this study suggested that vocational rehabilitation programmes have a beneficial impact upon cognitive performance in people with autism.