Student-Focused Transition Assessment Process

1. Student-Focused Transition Assessment Process Jim Martin and Amber McConnell. University of Oklahoma Zarrow Center

2. Agenda • Purpose of Special Education • Building Transition Assessment Implementation Timeline Across Grades and Student Abilities • Student Focused Assessment Concepts • Three-Part Transition Assessment Model • Self-Determination Skills • Vocational Interests and Skills • Can read • Can’t read • Independent Living Skills • Putting It All Together Into a Student Script • Students write draft PLEP, Strengths, and Needs

3. The Purpose of SPED . . . a free appropriate public education that emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet students’ unique needs and to prepare them for further education, employment, and independent living.

4. IDEA 2004 Post-Secondary Goals • IEPs must include appropriate measurable postsecondary goals • based upon age-appropriate transition assessments • related to further education, employment, and when appropriate, independent living

5. Transition Assessment Implementation Timeline • Establish a comprehensive transition assessment plan • Build by grade and skill level • Identifies what, who, when, and how often • Can establish school or district wide implementation of a sequential transition assessment process. • North Dakota’s Transition Assessment Matrix • http://www.dpi.state.nd.us/transitn/matrix/matrix.shtm • View Sample Transition Assessment Timeline

6. Student-Focused Planning Principles Two Basic Principles • Students complete transition assessment student versions along with family members and educators completing their versions. • No assessment without direct student input • Transition assessments provide students information to make decisions on postsecondary and annual transition goals. • Implies that students be taught meaning of transition assessment result

7. Questions Drive Student-Focused Transition Assessment Post-secondary Goal Questions • Where do I want to learn after completing high school? • Where do I want to work after completing high school? • Where do I want to live after completing high school? Annual Transition Goal Questions • What do I need to learn now to be able to learn where I want after completing high school? • What do I need to learn now to be able to work where I want after completing high school? • What do I need to learn now to be able to live where I want after completing high school?

8. Implications • Use transition assessments that include student versions • Student input as important as educator and family member input • Students need to be taught to understand results of transition assessment • Students write summary of transition assessment and present at IEP meeting • Includes statement for PLEP, strengths, and needs • Students describe match between present skills and requirements for postsecondary goals and what needs to be learned or changed to attain postsecondary goals

9. Web Links • Handout lists all the web sites used today • Easy to read

10. Three-Part Transition Assessment Model

11. Transition Assessment Model Components • Vocational Interest and Skills Assessment • Self-Determination & Self-Advocacy Assessment • Independent Living Assessment

12. Vocational Interest & Skills Assessment and Exploration Part 1 of the 3-Part Transition Assessment Process

13. Belief • Work benefits individuals emotionally and socially • Enables individuals to contribute to society and to their own well being • Can be done without fear of losing social security or other benefits • Adds meaning to life

14. Employment Options • Individual Competitive Employment • Individual Supported Employment • Group Supported Employment • At Home or Community-Based Entrepreneurial Jobs

15. Vocational Interests for High Achieving Students With Mild Disabilities • Group Interest Inventories • ACT Explore • ACT Plan • U.S. Dept of Labor O*NET • www.onetcenter.org • Interest profiler, ability profiler • Look left under Products • Select career exploration tools

18. Self-Directed Search - Form E • Students with limited reading skills • Spanish version • manual, assessment booklets,& occupations finder • Reports interests across occupations • Available: www.parinc.com • Cost: $150

19. Self Directed Search - Form R • Students with advanced reading skills • Spanish version • manual, assessment booklets,& occupations finder • Reports interests across occupations, educational opportunities, and leisure • Available: www.parinc.com • Cost: $150

20. On-Line Free Interest Inventories • On-Line Individual Interest Inventories • Career Clusters • http://www.careertech.org/resources/clusters/interest-survey.html (download in pdf format) • State-based Career Web Sites • www.okcis.org (requires username and password) • http://www.learnmoreindiana.org • http://www.cacareerzone.org/ • I Oscar • www.ioscar.org • Dept of Labor • www.onetcenter.org • http://www.mynextmove.org/

21. Exploration of Interest Results • Occupational Outlook Handbook • www.bls.gov/oco/home.htm • www.bls.gov/k12/index.htm • My Next Move • http://www.mynextmove.org/ • Job videos (English or Spanish) • Individuals & Job clusters • http://acinet.org/acinet/videos.asp?id=27,&nodeid=27 • www.careervoyages.com • Uses the above videos in an interactive format

22. Career Awareness & Exploration • Watching • Video • http://acinet.org/acinet/videos.asp?id=27,&nodeid=27 • Provides numerous videos for students to watch • English or Spanish • Job cluster and skill categories • Horse Training • Coast Guard Assistant • Construction Workers • Live in the Community • Doing • Short exploration periods • Long-term try-outs

23. Functional Vocational Assessment Designed for Students Involved in Work Study Programs

24. What does the law say? . . . and when appropriate . . . functional vocational evaluation. When to consider what’s appropriate? When the previous informal assessments do not provide needed information. What do we use? Tools that student’s can explore and make a job match.

25. Assumptions • Individuals with disabilities have personal preferences, likes, and dislikes • ChoiceMaking is “an individual’s selection of a preferred alternative from among several familiar options” (Shevin & Klein, 1984) • No consequences exists for selecting one choice over the other except that which comes from the choice itself (Brigham, 1979). • Must have a means to communicate preferences • ChoiceMaking skills typically must be taught • ChoiceMaking opportunities must be provided

26. Functional Assessment Process • Over time • Repeated Measures Situational Assessment

27. Basic Procedures • Prior to visiting a job site, individual will select preferred tasks and characteristics • Visit job site and spend time watching and/or doing tasks • After visit, will compare initial preferences to those at the site • Process repeated across numerous sites

28. Coverage • Intensive lessons in teaching Choosing Goals process (lessons 1 - 5) • Community-based assessment and problem solving (lessons 6 - 15) • Classroom-based career exploration (lessons 16 - 19)

29. Choosing Goals • Quick means for students to develop goals

30. Job Characteristics I Like • Teach Job Characteristics • Introduces Match Concept between • What I like • What’s at this job • Computes % of Matches

31. Key: Determine Match Between What I Like and What’s At This Site

32. Each time student chooses a characteristic one more cell on the graph is marked

33. Vocational Interests via Career Exploration - For Those Who Can Read Choosing Employment Goals Sopris West Publishers (www.sopriswest.com) Requires reading and writing skills

34. Research • Choosing Goals Lessons 1 - 5 produced significant differences in measures of self-determination across two assessment instruments • Students expressed preferences in their IEP meetings. • Students were in high school and had mild to moderate mental retardation (Cross, Cooke, Wood, & Test, 1999)

35. Job Duties I Like • Identifies job duties • Based upon current job or work experience • Assess preferences for job duties • Calculate % of Job Duties I Like

37. Job Duties - How I Did • Job duties identified and written onto form • Student evaluates speed, independent performance, and accuracy • Supervisor evaluates speed, independent performance, and accuracy • Match made between student and supervisor

38. Uses self-evaluation methodology to teach job performance skills and to assess job duty skills

39. Work, Social, & Personal Skills • Student rates performance • Supervisor or teacher rate performance • Calculates what supervisor thinks • Calculates match between worker and supervisor

40. Self-Determination Contracts to solve on-the job problems

41. Employability/Life Skills Assessment Domains Details Score items 1 to 3 scale and totals by sub-domain Score across ages Prepares cumulative graph of progress across years Free: Download at: http://scdcdt.webs.com/Employability%20Assessment.pdf • For students aged 14 – 21 • 8 major domains & 24 items • Self-help skills • Work habits • Work Quality • Relations with Supervisor • Relations with Peers • Work Attitudes

42. Functional Vocational Assessment Choice-Making

43. Vocational Interest Assessment for Non-Readers

44. Basic Procedures • Prior to visiting a job site, individual will select preferred tasks and characteristics • Visit job site and spend time watching and/or doing tasks • After visit, will compare initial preferences to those at the site • Process repeated across numerous sites

45. http://brookespublishing.com/picturebank/ What Do I Want To Do?

46. What Jobs Have I Done?

47. Characteristics I Like vs Here Compares initial preferences to those experienced at a particular job site.

48. Characteristics Graph

49. Personal Improvement Contract

50. Field Testing • 751 Individuals with disabilities across 11 years • 234 with mental retardation • 145 with chronic mental illness • 113 with severe learning disability • 102 with physical disabilities • 96 with other disability including autism • 61 with traumatic brain injury • Replicated across numerous sites