TOPIC
The legislative intent of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is to encourage student involvement in educational decision-making process, particularly in transition planning. In order to promote active and meaningful participation, it is critical to enable students with disabilities to gain the skills they will need to become more self-determined, as well as to give them opportunities to practice theses skills to engage in their education planning. This Knowledge-To-Action will provide you with resources and information about how to incorporate your student or child into the education and transition planning process.
BOTTOM LINE
- IDEA requires special education and related services to be provided to student with disability and be documented in an Individualized Education Program (IEP). The law also requires that the student with disability must be invited to participate in IEP meetings if a purpose of the meeting is to discuss postsecondary goals and transition services for the student. Transition services starts at the age of 16 or younger to facilitate student’s transition from school to postsecondary education, vocational education, integrated employment, independent living, or community participation. Transition goals must be based on the student’s interests, needs, preferences, and strengths.
- Students should learn skills and be given opportunities to be involved in their education and transition decision making. Therefore, meaningfully engage in their own IEP meetings and transition-planning meetings is an important instructional goal.
- Teaching students self-determination related skills would enable them to become more involved in their educational planning process. Students who are more involved in their educational and transition planning also have higher levels of self-determination.
- To increase capability and responsibility for students in the educational planning, an array of component elements of self-determined behavior are effective, including teaching choice making, goal setting/attainment, problem-solving, self-regulation, self-advocacy, and self-awareness (Algozzine, Browder, Karvonen, Test, & Wood, 2001).
- Curricula designed to teach self-determination skills for student involvement are ChoiceMaker Self-Determination Transition Curriculum (Martin & Marshall, 1995), Whose Future Is It Anyway? (Wehmeyer & Lawrence, 1995), thNext S.T.E.P. curriculum (Halpern, et al., 1997), the Self-Advocacy Strategy for Education and Transition Planning (Van Reusen, Bos, Schumaker, & Deshler, 1994), Goal Action Planning (Turnbull, et al., 1996).
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For students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, the issues regarding the unique difference between school-based individualist planning and family collective decision-making should be recognized and addressed prior to transition planning meetings (Wehmeyer, 2007).