Vocational Rehabilitation

Evaluation, Assessment and Planning
Vocational rehabilitation assists the individual to return to work and successful return-to-work transition is linked to good vocational assessment. What type of assessment provides the best information? Methods such as occupational interest inventories and vocational aptitude batteries are routinely used.

Why Vocational Assessment & Evaluation?

Vocational rehabilitation professionals use assessment & evaluation tools to determine if an individual can return-to-work, and, if so, to what type of occupation. Good assessments measure strengths, areas of need, and provide insight to the individual's level and style of learning abilities. Professionals assess vocational potential for realistic job and/or training alternatives where transferable skills alone may not be viable. Sound assessments integrate the available medical, psychological, social, vocational, educational, cultural, and economic data. Direct job placement, retraining, job modification or accommodation may follow.

Personal and Vocational Characteristics

Assessments measure an individual's personal and vocational characteristics. These factors are defined in The Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) and include: Vocational Interests, Aptitudes (general learning; verbal, numerical, and spatial abilities; form, clerical perception, motor coordination, finger & manual dexterity, and eye-hand-foot coordination), Education (reasoning, mathematical, language), Training, Employment History, Transferable Skills, Vocational Skills, Physical Abilities & Functional Limitations, Language Skills, and Cognitive Abilities. The appraisal of these are important to successful job or training placement.

The Vocational Assessment/Evaluation Report

A thorough and concise report consolidates and summarizes the personal, background, medical, psychological, social, vocational, educational, cultural, economic data, and test results in general terminology. What the client can do is identified by physical capacities, aptitudes, and abilities while interests and attitudes reveal what the client wants to do. The report contains recommendations to complete the rehabilitation or treatment plan, including realistic occupational options.

Early Intervention

Vocational assessment is most effective when implemented early in the rehabilitation process. This typically occurs when the individual is medically stable or Maximum Medical Improvement (MMI) is anticipated but some question remains regarding a return to the preinjury job. Early intervention facilitates both early return-to-work and indicates additional services which may increase the return-to-work success rate.

The Evaluator

The selection of an evaluator is important. A referral source should look at Education, Training, Experience, and Certification. Equally important is the evaluator's ability to incorporate testing processes, new technologies and tools, access to Labor Market data, and ability to quantify data. In this age of information and technology, an evaluator need not be local to be successful. In some cases, a local evaluator may not possess an optimal level or combination of crucial characteristics necessary for the most successful Vocational Assessment & Evaluation process.

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