Secondary Transition

EXPLANATION

A comprehensive evaluation, that includes at least two transition assessments, must occur before the end of grade 9 and must address:

Post-Secondary Education and Training
Employment
Independent Living (Recreation & Leisure, Home Living, & Community Participation)

Secondary transition evaluations should be part of a comprehensive evaluation addressing all areas of need. Transition assessment must not only identify needs but must also identify the student’s strengths, preferences, and interests.

MDE Approved assessments

Age-appropriate transition assessments are the process of collecting data on the student's needs, strengths, preferences, and interests as they relate to the skills needed for employment, education, and independent living environments. Assessment data serves as the basis for defining annual instructional goals and services to be included in the IEP. Age appropriate assessments must be gathered from multiple sources.

Age-Appropriate Transition Assessments

Provide baseline data
Assist the student in identifying strengths, interests, and preferences
Support the identification of appropriate measurable postsecondary goals
Identify appropriate accommodations and needed services; and
Identify needed instruction and activities to achieve measurable postsecondary goals

What kind of information can be gathered from age-appropriate transition assessments?

Life skills
Reasoning and problem-solving
Learning style
Communication
Self-determination and self-advocacy
Assistive Technology
Academics
Adaptive Behavior
Executive Functioning

Informal assessments may include areas such as:

Interviews or questionnaires
Direct Observations
Environmental or situational analysis
Curriculum-Based Assessments
Rating Scales; and/or
Transition Planning Inventories

Formal Assessments are standardized and/or criterion-referenced instruments.

Can include:

adaptive behavior and independent living assessments
aptitude tests
interest assessments
personality and preference tests
career development measures
measures of self-determination

INTERVIEW FORMS

The structured interview forms below may be used as a second assessment tool.

Transition Planning Interview (Grades 5-8): Targeted at middle school students, this comprehensive interview gathers data in the areas of home & daily living, community participation, recreation & leisure, employment, and post-secondary education & training.

Structured Transition Questionnaire: A comprehensive interview that gathers data in the areas of employment, post-secondary education & training, home & daily living, community participation, and recreation & leisure. Primarily composed of open-ended questions. The student is repeatedly asked to list transition resources in various domains.
Student Transition Interview: Gathers data in the areas of home & daily living, community participation, recreation & leisure, employment, and post-secondary education & training.
Comprehensive High School Transition Survey: Gathers data in the areas of home & daily living, community participation, recreation & leisure, jobs & job training, and post-secondary education & training. A mix of open-ended and multiple choice questions.
Self-Advocacy Questionnaire: The student rates their self-advocacy skills in the education setting using a series of Likert scale items. Gathers data relevant primarily to the area of post-secondary education & training.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Why do we need to complete two transition assessments during the evaluation?

IDEA (Section 1414 (d) (1) (A) (i) (VIII)) clearly states that postsecondary goals must be based on transition assessments (plural). Thus, at a minimum, we must complete at least two transition assessments to meet the legal requirement.

If we need to complete a comprehensive evaluation that includes transition assessments to meet state statute, how are we able to administer transition assessments annually to update the transition PLAAFP?

We must obtain consent (initial) or attempt to obtain consent (re-eval) for comprehensive evaluations that will determine special education eligibility. However, we can still use individual evaluation tools (e.g., CBMs) to inform our teaching and to update our IEPs. For example, we don't get special permission to give students an ORF probe to update their IEP goal. The big difference is how we are using the data. In an evaluation, that data is used to make a decision about eligibility or continued eligibility while between evaluations we use data to inform our teaching and update our IEPs.

You might wonder, 'Does that mean that I could administer, say, an IQ test between evaluations in order to update an IEP?' Ethically, standardized assessments (e.g., IQ tests, WJ-Achievement, ABAS, BASC, etc.) would not fall under use outside of an evaluation, as the main purpose of standardized norm-referenced assessments is to compare skills to a nationally normed base in order to support eligibility determinations. Compared to CBMs, transition assessments, etc., standardized norm-referenced assessments do not provide useful information for program planning or IEP goal development, and you wouldn't use them as progress monitoring tools.

If I complete an evaluation including transition assessments during a student’s 7th or 8th grade year, do I write a transition IEP during their 7th/8th grade year or wait until their 9th grade year when a transition IEP is legally due?

Once educational needs have been identified through a comprehensive evaluation, they must be addressed in the IEP. Because you have identified transition needs via the 7th or 8th grade evaluation, the IEP must begin to address those needs. Click here for more information on addressing secondary transition in an IEP.

Report abuse