Dear Readers:
I would like to thank all of our IARP editorial board members and contributors for their insightful manuscripts, reviews and recommendations for vocational rehabilitation practice shared in this edition of the Rehabilitation Professional. I would also like to thank Sonia Peterson, Aaron Mertes and Tim Field for all of their efforts over the years and assisting with my transition into this new role.
We appreciate the work of Craig Johnson for his article that explores the utilization of race-based worklife expectancy tables that courts have traditionally allowed to help predict what the individual would have earned had they not sustained their loss. However, recent legislation has prohibited the use of these tables in some States, citing the discriminatory impact on certain individuals or groups. In these cases, the vocational expert is uniquely qualified to identify individual variables that more accurately assess an individual’s future earning capacity.
The second article is a long-term research project in collaboration with IARP and the George Washington University. This longitudinal study began with an IARP Delphi Panel of 12 carefully selected members in 2016, with an average of 31 years’ experience in VR and rehabilitation counseling and was published in Rehab Pro in 2017. This current effort was completed by a pro bono research team from the George Washington University and built upon prior research on counseling salary surveys completed by the American Counseling Association (ACA) and the Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification (CRCC). The participants from this longitudinal survey included 200 members of IARP who completed the online survey to provide the data to examine the average annual salary, demographics, and disability identity and experience of IARP members. We plan on continuing this research every five years to improve the earnings information of rehabilitation counselors and vocational experts that is currently underestimated by the U.S. Department of Labor’s O*Net and related labor market information.
We are grateful to Rebecca Evanko for her article that explores and summarizes the current research that indicates emerging evidence for an autistic female phenotype that differs from presentations of autism in males. The hallmarks of autism in women and girls are difficulties in social relationships, often accompanied by the phenomenon of camouflaging or masking. An estimated 80 percent of autistic females remain undiagnosed by the age of 18, resulting in the potential for enormous mental health challenges for a significant number of women.
Thank you to Michelle Mahr, Logan Winkelman, and Tobias Zellner for their interesting article that explores the treatment of alcohol addiction that combines rehabilitation psychology and acute hospital care in a comparison between the United States and Germany. They examine the treatment of alcohol addiction from different cultural viewpoints: the perspective of an American psychotherapist, and on the other hand, the perspective of a German acute care and addiction medicine physician.
We are also pleased to share a very interesting book review in this issue. Cloie Johnson has reviewed Drs. Rutherford-Owen, Barros-Bailey, and Weed’s collaboration for the 5th edition of Life Care Planning and Case Management Across the Lifespan. In this edition they enlisted 52 additional contributors, to provide a comprehensive resource for up-to-date issues in case management and Life Care Planning. This version is renamed to address the comprehensive nature of Life Care Planning for individuals of all ages throughout their life. It is a wonderful resource for graduate students, faculty members and practitioners to fully understand Life Care Planning across the lifespan.
We hope you find this issue informative and useful for your professional practice. I look forward to serving IARP over the next three years and thank you for your ongoing support of our IARP journals.
Sincerely,
Scott Beveridge, Editor-in-Chief