Lindsey Ogle, assistant professor of special education, grew up living with her brother on the autism spectrum, Matt Ogle, whom she described as having very limited speech capabilities. Her family watched him struggle to find a job in rural Tennessee.

Even though her brother makes the most of his limited opportunities through volunteer work, he isn’t the only one who’s faced struggles finding employment. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate in 2022 was around twice as high for individuals with a disability compared to individuals without one.

Now as a co-investigator for COMPASS (Collaborative Model for Competence and Success) Across Settings (CAST), an intervention project funded by the Institute of Educational Sciences (IES) through a $1,999,999 grant, Lindsey will help high school students with autism across Indiana find their place in society. CAST’s main goal is to help individuals with autism smoothly transition out of high school depending on their intended career path, whether through college or not, by working with parents and teachers to increase employment chances for each student. The program enables one of the first transition-planning intervention projects backed up by research to come to both the Department of Special Education and the Department of Education Psychology.

Click here to read the rest of the Ball State Daily News article by Zach Gonzalez.