The Disability Employment Discourse Within The Perceptions...

4.1 Introduction This literature review was designed to investigate awareness of the disability employment discourse within the perceptions of people with LDD and their circle of support; what do the people it directly affects know about employment services and opportunities? It focuses on one question: What are parents, carers and young people’s understanding of employment opportunities for those with learning difficulties and disabilities? In order to address this question, academic and policy literature from the last 10 years on disability employment was reviewed. Although a threshold of 10 years was preferred for this research, it was not always possible to maintain that base and some literature is reported from outside that limitation. The literature search focused on studies that were summaries of existing research on the topic, new research that included extensive literature reviews, and government sponsored studies of disability employment programmes such as the Work Choice and Access to Work. Many theories have projected the importance of disability employment for both the individual and the community. Although the literature covers a wide variety of such theories, this review will focus on three themes which emerge throughout the literature reviewed. These themes are: †¢ Disability disclosure †¢ Disability employment rates †¢ Disability employment programmes 4.2 Approaches to literature analysis The approach used for the analysis of the literature began with