When students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) were told in middle school that science “wasn’t for them,” few could have imagined they’d one day pursue careers in advanced manufacturing or engineering. But at the University of Cincinnati (UC)’s IDD Education Center, those once-dismissed students are now engaging in pre-apprenticeships and apprenticeships, learning complex skills that position them for high-demand careers in STEM fields.
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When students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) were told in middle school that science “wasn’t for them,” few could have imagined they’d one day pursue careers in advanced manufacturing or engineering. But at the University of Cincinnati (UC)’s IDD Education Center, those once-dismissed students are now engaging in pre-apprenticeships and apprenticeships, learning complex skills that position them for high-demand careers in STEM fields.
Jordan, a CEES student, shares his experiences on UC’s campus during a poster board presentation.
Established in 2014 and housed within UC’s College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services, the IDD Education Center has evolved into one of the most comprehensive programs of its kind in the nation. What makes the center unique is its continuum of services, offering opportunities for individuals starting around age 14 and continuing into adulthood — a scope few similar programs can match.
The center operates four distinct programs, each designed to meet different needs and life stages. The Transition and Access Pathways (TAP) program is an inclusive post-secondary program that allows students with IDD to live on campus and participate fully in university life. Impact Innovation serves adults with complex behavioral and communication support needs in an inclusive university setting — what’s technically classified as an adult day program but operates with a community-focused approach that Carnahan says would otherwise leave many participants at home without opportunities.
Dr. Christina Carnahan
The center also runs a robust high school program, partnering with more than 15 school districts across the region to provide transition services during the school year and intensive summer programming. Rounding out the offerings is the Regional Office Advisory Council, which helps coordinate services across the region.
“What’s really unique about our programs is that our support model is based on student workers from the university,” Carnahan notes. The center employs more than 125 UC students annually, making it one of the largest employers of student workers on campus. But unlike typical campus employment, these positions create transformative experiences for everyone involved.
The center deliberately pairs students from diverse academic backgrounds — engineering, IT, medicine, occupational therapy, speech pathology, and special education — as peer mentors for program participants.
“It’s the pairing of those students, for example from engineering, with our special educators, as the peer mentors for the individuals in our program that really is unique,” Carnahan explains.
This model serves a dual purpose. While providing crucial support for individuals with IDD, it simultaneously cultivates inclusive mindsets among the next generation of leaders.
“Our student workers are going to be the leaders in five and ten years in our country,” Carnahan points out. “They’re building inclusive mindsets in a really critical and important way.”
Building employment pathways
The center’s employment-focused mission has been evident since its earliest days, thanks in large part to the vision of leaders like Cadi Dart, associate director of employment services and CEES (Collaboration for Employment and Education Synergy) program director. A UC alumna who earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the university, Dart has worked alongside Carnahan for 15 years — a partnership that began when Dart was an undergraduate special education student and Carnahan was her professor.
When the center was in its early development stages, originally called Advancement and Transition Services, Carnahan invited Dart to help build transition programming.
“That’s really kind of my background,” Dart explains. For her master’s project, she actually built the center’s high school transition program, CEES.
After serving as director of the high school program for several years, Dart moved into her current role two years ago, working across all three programs — CEES, TAP, and Impact—to develop technical training programs, community access, and everything related to vocational development and employment.
“In a nutshell, all the work we do is improving quality of life outcomes for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities,” Dart explains. “My job is to make sure that our students have access to pathways and training platforms, whether that be a pre-apprenticeship, an apprenticeship, post-secondary education, or any other type of training program. And when they don’t have access to those programs, we develop them. We really sit in that innovative world.”
The center’s vocational services focus on four key pillars: health and wellness, lifelong learning, vocational development, and the development of self-determination. “Everything we do is rooted in making sure we’re developing those skills with the people that we serve,” Dart says.
But employment means more than just earning wages.
“Work is one thing — we have to be able to pay our bills. But just the other outcomes that we can receive from employment: relationship building, building competency and self-determination within oneself. Employment gives us so many opportunities to build those skills.”
To deliver on this vision, Dart must stay closely attuned to industry demands while ensuring students with IDD can access the same high-quality training programs available to their peers. The center’s work with pre-apprenticeships and apprenticeships, developed hand-in-hand with the University of Cincinnati, represents what Dart describes as “nationally leading work,” integrating students with IDD into accessible training programs where they can earn livable wages.
Addressing Ohio’s workforce crisis
While the growth of inclusive post-secondary programs nationwide has been remarkable — from roughly 50 programs when TAP launched 12 years ago to over 300 today — the IDD Education Center’s STEM pathways represent particularly innovative territory. Through partnerships with corporations like Siemens and with UC’s science and engineering faculty, the center has developed pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship pathways in IT, engineering, and medical fields.
These programs aren’t just addressing individual aspirations; they’re tackling two critical challenges simultaneously. Ohio faces significant workforce gaps, particularly in fast-growing STEM fields. The state needs tremendous numbers of highly skilled workers over the next five years — workers who don’t necessarily need degrees but must possess technical competencies. Meanwhile, people with disabilities — particularly those with intellectual and developmental disabilities — remain among the most unemployed and underemployed populations.
Right now, the center’s engineering pre-apprenticeship and laboratory technician programs are drawing particular attention from state officials. “These are potentially models that can be easily replicated in other institutes of higher education around the state to be able to fill some of those gaps,” Dart notes.
“We’re trying to flip the script,” Carnahan says. “Sometimes people think providing training and support and employment development to people with disabilities is like you’re doing something for them. That’s not the case. We’re trying to address the needs in our state and put people in positions where they can be real contributors to their community. They’ve been overlooked as possible employees for such a long time.”
The approach represents a fundamental shift in how society engages with disability communities. “You’re changing the narrative often in the ways we think about how to engage with populations,” Carnahan acknowledges. “It’s not just that you’re providing a service. It’s mutual in terms of the benefits to society in general.”
Research undergirds everything the center does, with studies ranging from communication strategies for individuals with complex needs to goal-setting and self-determination in the TAP program. In the high school program, researchers examine what instructional supports help young adults with IDD learn complex skills related to IT and healthcare.
The work faces significant headwinds, however. Current federal funding changes have resulted in lost grants, making it harder to sustain and expand programs precisely when demand is growing. “We’ve got to continue to push boundaries, and we have to make an investment at the state and national level into these kinds of programs,” Carnahan argues, noting that from a financial standpoint, such investments make sense: they enable people to earn living wages, reducing reliance on social systems, while giving companies access to qualified workers who can increase productivity.
“We’re showing people are capable of contributing to their communities,” she says. “All they need is a little bit of education and somebody to give them a chance.”
Students in the high school program follow various pathways — some matriculating to UC, others completing apprenticeships, still others moving directly into employment. The goal isn’t a one-size-fits-all outcome but rather positioning each individual to set goals and determine their next steps toward earning a living wage, achieving desired independence, and making choices about how they want to contribute to their community.
For Carnahan, a professor of special education who has dedicated years to this work, and for Dart, whose 15-year partnership with Carnahan spans from classroom to center leadership, the mission remains clear: pushing boundaries on opportunities available to people with IDD “whether those are in employment or a variety of other areas.”
