Income: A Framework for Conceptualizing the Career Development of Persons with Disabilities

Existing theories of career development have been criticized in the rehabilitation literature for having questionable applicability to persons with disabilities. Given the diversity of disabilities and of persons with disabilities, the authors doubt that a generally applicable theory can be developed. They propose a viable alternative to guide rehabilitation counseling practice: a framework that posits that the career development of individuals (including those with disabilities) at any given point in their lives can be classified into one or more statuses, each of which calls for different interventions. These statuses form the acronym INCOME: Imagining, iNforming, Choosing, Obtaining, Maintaining, and Exiting.