Based on the premise that thousands of disabled do not participate in vocational education mainly because of nonacceptance into programs due to a lack of readiness, a study was conducted focusing on three severely disabled groups: (1) those accepted by the Department of Rehabilitation for programs, (2) those not accepted but given "pre-vocational" services, and (3) those not accepted and receiving no services. It was hypothesized that more could be helped with more readily available services; that "pre-vocational" services would increase self-esteem and vocational satisfaction; and that the group previously rejected would gain the same level of self-esteem, overall adjustment, etc., as the group chosen for participation in vocational education programs once they had"pre-vocational" services. A pretest-posttest controlled comparison study utilizing a treatment/no treatment randomized design with matched samples was conducted on one experimental group (39 subjects) and two comparison groups (29 and 33 subjects). A number of services (personal and family counseling, work adjustment, skill evaluation, work experience, independent living experience) were given the experimental group. Results indicated significant attainment of vocational education and employment objectives by the experimental group. There was no significant difference on psychological measures between pre- and posttesting across groups; however, regression analysis proved several psychological variables significant in predicting employment. (FP)