When it comes to feeling happy and fulfilled, what really matters to young adults with learning and attention issues? The answer turns out to have little direct correlation with traditional school work, and everything to do with connections—to a supportive and nurturing family, to friends and the community, and even to themselves, in the form of self-confidence and ease at dealing with emotional problems and making friends, according to a new survey.
With support from the Oak Foundation, the National Center for Learning Disabilities surveyed 1,200 young adults two years out of school in August and September of 2014 to gauge their post-school success and tease out the factors that helped support them.
The survey intentionally included youth with a variety of disability statuses: those with no diagnosed disability, those who had received some sort of support in school because of a formal diagnosis of a disability such as dyslexia or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and those youth who had not received any school support, but still felt they had some sort of issue that had a significant impact on their success in school. The students without known disabilities were included because the researchers wanted to tease out what factors may be linked to disability, and what factors could potentially be linked to the challenges of being a young adult.
