When Kathryn Giordano, director of administration at Baker Botts LLP, suggested to Pat Berry that his daughter come work at his law firm for the summer, he shook his head in disbelief. “I thought no, not a law firm,” he said. “It was absolutely scary.”

That’s because Berry’s 19-year-old daughter who loves to ride horses and types 45 words a minute has a cognitive disability. His daughter’s stint at the Washington firm allayed his initial fears. “Professionals with cognitively disabled children think they can’t do this,’’ he said. “But they can.’’

Other organisations have had the same realisation. A decade ago, the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital opened a division called Project Search which helps place people with cognitive disabilities in jobs within the hospital and teaches other organisations how to do the same.

“We really have found that people with significant disabilities are capable of doing incredibly complex work as long as it’s systematic,’’ said Erin Riehle, director of the project. Most people with developmental disabilities work in stereotypical jobs, she said, like cleaning and horticulture. “Our objective was to look beyond that. We found that we could put people with Down syndrome, Williams syndrome and many other disabilities into roles that had never been considered before.’’

People with cognitive disabilities have significant delays in measured intelligence, adaptive functioning or academic functioning. “A fair amount of hospital revenue comes from providing medical care to kids with disabilities. We kind of had an awareness that we needed to provide role models in our workforce,” Riehle said.

... contd.