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Meaningful Occupation for Adults with Intellectual Disability
Jönköping University, School of Education and Communication, HLK, CHILD.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-0826-4735
School of Health and Welfare, Halmstad University, Halmstad, Sweden.
2024 (English)In: The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Disability / [ed] G. Bennett & E. Goodall, Cham: Springer, 2024, p. 1-11Chapter in book (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

According to international statutes, such as the UN Convention of Rights for People with Disabilities, all people have the right to be engaged in employment or other occupations on equal terms. However, people with disabilities in general, and people with intellectual disability in particular, are often excluded from the labor market or other occupational settings. Occupation may be defined as everyday activities that people do to occupy time and to bring meaning to life. But the concept of what an occupation is, including its aspect of meaningfulness, varies across contexts and individuals. This chapter aims to discuss meaningful occupation for people with intellectual disability in relation to three types of structured occupations from a Swedish context. The first is employment, for which meaningfulness could be measured as being long-term employed. However, staying for a long period of time at the same workplace may also be a result of lacking alternatives. The second occupation type is disability day programs referred to as daily activity. One key to understanding whether people with intellectual disability find these daily activities meaningful is whether or not they view it as a “real job.” The third type is further (post-secondary) education. The Scandinavian educational setting of Folk High Schools is presented and discussed in terms of meaningfulness. In addition to these three categories, not being involved in any of these activities (referred to as being Not in Employment, Education, or Daily activity—NEED) is also discussed. Being NEED does not necessarily entail a lack of meaningfulness, but it is common for people in this category to express desires to be involved in some kind of structured occupation. Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion of the ideals of employment in relation to meaningful occupation.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Cham: Springer, 2024. p. 1-11
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Occupational Therapy
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-65809DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-40858-8_55-1ISBN: 978-3-031-40858-8 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hj-65809DiVA, id: diva2:1888047
Available from: 2024-08-12 Created: 2024-08-12 Last updated: 2025-10-13Bibliographically approved

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