Differential analysis of Social Security disability and vocational rehabilitation applicants.

An effort was made to differentiate the characteristics of clients who applied for Social Security Disability from those who applied for Vocational Rehabilitation. Psychological, diagnostic, intellectual, academic ability differences, and demographic factors of sex, age, and race between social security disability applicants and vocational rehabilitation applicants were examined. The latter were more intelligent and had higher academic functioning. Applicants for social security disability were less intelligent and tended to be functionally illiterate. Multiple discriminant analysis indicated that mathematics scores and differences in intelligence were the primary discriminants. Another difference appeared to be that rehabilitation clients tended to be diagnosed as substance abusers or learning disabled, while disability clients were more likely to be diagnosed as mentally retarded or having dementia.