Sample Transition Plans For Students With Disabilities

Sample Transition Plans For  Students With Disabilities
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Components Of a Transition Plan

Transition plan forms are developed and completed as part of the IEP. They should be completed no later than when a student turns sixteen or earlier. The IEP team should revise and update the transition form every year. Sample transition plans for students with disabilities should include the student’s interests, preferences, abilities and transition services needs.

All transition plan forms should also include a student’s educational goals, including post-secondary and technical training. It should always have a student’s employment goals including any supported employment services. A transition form should always have assessment needs including any functional vocational evaluation, the form should have any type of community participation the student will be involved in. The form should also include a students independent living skills and linkages to adult services.

Designing a Plan

The IEP team is encouraged to plan backward, meaning they should start planning from where they hope the student needs to be at graduation to the present. They need to think about several things when planning such as the student’s career choices, continuing education or training, employment, living arrangements, income and financial decisions, support needs, transportation needs, medical needs, personal care needs, personal relationships, leisure skills, individual counseling, legal needs and recreational activities.

The first step in transition planning is deciding on a students long term goals. A student should be asked what it is they want to do once they leave school. The second step is helping the student develop their current year goals, and this can be achieved by asking the student what it is they need to do this year to get to their post-school goal. The third step is to help the student identify transition services that they may need.

The student should be asked if they need help to meet goals for this year and if so from whom and what kind of help do they need. The fourth step is to figure out what other type of services the student might need like, will the student need other help to get to their post school goal such as functional vocational evaluation, daily living skills training, applying for SSI or other services.

Sample Structure

Sample transition plans for students with disabilities should always include a needs assessment, accommodations, modification, teaching methods, lesson content and structure and assessment. However, when writing a transition lesson plan, the four step plan has to be followed.

This plan for disabled students is; deciding on the student’s long term goals, helping the student develop their current year goals, helping the student identify the transition services they may need and what other services the student might need. Here is an example of a transition lesson structure.

Step 1) The teacher should divide the classroom into pairs.

Step 2) The teacher should then distribute one index card to each pair. One sample transition should be included in each card. The teacher should make sure they include transitions from each aspect of life whether it be personal, family, community and career. Sample transitions include:

  • Selecting a college (personal transition)
  • Reacting to peer pressure(personal transition)
  • Deciding whether or not to build a cabin at at the lake
  • Deciding where to live (family transition)
  • Selecting a doctor, dentist, church or recreation activity (community transition)
  • Deciding where you will bank and deciding about your summer job (career transition).

Step 3) The teacher should give each group about 20 minutes to work through the four-step planning process and determine how they will go about managing the transition assigned to them.

Before the student pairs begin their 20 minute task, provide them with a worksheet that will detail the groups sample transition, their current level of performance and skills they will need to obtain to achieve their transition goals.

Final Step

Bring closure to this co-operative group skill session by asking each pair to state, aloud to the entire group, the transition they were assigned and to state what their current levels of performance are, what skills they are intending to obtain in order to reach their transition goals and what barriers they think they might come across and what type of facilitation they need to overcome the barriers.

Transition planning is something that occurs through most of the life of a special education student but in high school the students have to have a plan that is formal in order to have successful transition from youth to adulthood and that is why it is quite important that teachers write successful transition plans with their students and revise them frequently to ensure that the students will be as successful as possible in their adult life.

Sources:

https://www.instructorweb.com/lesson/transitions.asp