How Does Transition Assessment Fit Into The IEP Process?
Sometimes it is hard to see the forest
for the trees. Transition assessment information should be used to build the big picture of who a student is and where they want to be both for the current year and for future years.
In Indiana, the Department of Education has developed a Transition IEP Flowchart so that teachers can see how to create a compliant quality Age Appropriate Transition Assessment and Indiviudualized Education Program for each student. Let's briefly overview the process as it applies to Transition Assesment.
Check Out the link in the Handouts box on the right side of your screen and it will take you directly to the Transition IEP: A Self-guided Tutorial on What You Need to Know to Write Quality Compliant Transition IEPs for more in-depth information on the IEP process.
The Indiana Transition IEP Flowchart & Transition Assessment
The starting point each year of a student's IEP is always the present level of performance of academic and functional achievement including age appropriate transition assessment. Remember that the law says team members must consider a student's strengths, interests, preferences and support needs when considering postsecondary goals. So, gathering information about these four parts of a whole student are the center of the age-appropriate transition assessment.
Once the information has been gathered, the next task is to summarize the results of the assessment. The summary is what should help the team generate the postsecondary goals. It is very important in your summary to identify the name of the assessment, the date it was given, and what information you and the student gained from doing the asessment.
The results and summary of the age-appropriate transition assessments help develop or refine the measurable postsecondary goals. Teachers are required to write measurable postsecondary goals in the areas of education/training, employment, and if appropriate independent living skills.
Based on the data from the present levels of performance inlcuding transition assessments, determine the annual goals (objectives and benchmarks) and transition services and activities to be carried out for the upcoming year.
The route that a student will take to reach his/her postsecondary goals means the course of study must be aligned so that the student will succeed in meeting their goals.
Age appropropriate transition assessments are the glue that holds the process together!
The integral part of transition asessment and the IEP process is the assessment process itself. Teams must decide: what to assess and why, who will do the assessment and when, and how what is learned will be summarized so that it can be used to make sure that the student keeps moving in the direction of their postsecondary goals. In the next few sections we will be discussing how the assessment process.
Go to the next Section of the training to learn about how to do transition assessment.
Hand Outs
Transition Assessment Resource Guide
