5 Steps to Effective Transition Planning for Students WIth ASD

The article I chose for this week was about five steps for developing effective transition plans for high school students with autism spectrum disorder.  The authors in this article discussed challenges for transition plans for students with ASD, examples of how to write their plans, and common errors associated with transition plans for students with ASD.  The authors did the research at a rural medium size high school with an increasing number of students with ASD. 

                First, I will discuss the five steps the authors wrote about effective transition planning.  Step one is to identify transition goals.  According to the authors, “when designing a transition IEP, the team should begin by considering the student’s needs in the area of postsecondary education, employment, and independent living.” (Smith, Szidon, Ruppar, 2015) To obtain this information, the authors suggest the team gives the student a formal transition assessment.  According to the authors, “one common error in transition assessment and goal writing for students with ASD is the failure to consider and assess student challenges in core areas that are associated with autism.” (Smith, Szidon, Ruppar, 2015) Even though students with ASD can test high in academic areas, they often have significant challenges in their social and adaptive skills that can affect their independence.  To assist with this, the IEP team should develop a well-rounded plan to teach these important skills.  The second step the authors discuss in this article is to link postsecondary goals with IEP goals. 

The authors state, “There should be a clear connection between postsecondary goals (to be achieved after graduation) and IEP goals (to be achieved in an academic year). A common error in transition IEP writing is to have measurable postsecondary goals and measureable IEP goals with no link between the two.  This is especially problematic for students with ASD, for whom generalization of skills is particularly difficult.” (Smith, Szidon, Ruppar, 2015)

                The third step is to troubleshoot and adjust transition and IEP goals. The authors determined the IEP goal need to have four key components: (a) the student’s name, (b) an observable skill that the student will improve, (c) the condition under which the skill should be performed, and (d) a criterion for reaching the goal.  The authors also offered three pitfalls to assist IEP with the troubleshooting step.  The pitfalls are: (a) goals that amount to only passive participation, (b) goals that are too specific to a particular curriculum, and (c) goals that measure only episodic events.  The fourth step is to provide opportunities to teach skills. 

According to the authors, “For students with a full load of academic instruction, finding time to offer adaptive skill development or social curriculum may require creative planning and difficult decision making on the part of the IEP team. Ongoing evaluation of student needs and high school offerings is one way to help support a flexible curriculum that can adapt to the unique and varied needs of students with ASD.  For instance, it may be necessary to add a communication class as an option for students who need individualized instruction in social skills.” (Smith, Szidon, Ruppar, 2015)                          

                Step five is to evaluate progress.  For data to be collected easily, the student’s goals must be written in a manner that is observable, and the performance conditions and criteria are well articulated. Because standardized academic scores may not be collected often enough to inform teachers of instructional changes, teachers should consider to measure progress based upon general impressions of student performance or global observations of the student.  According to the authors, “without a careful analysis of the pattern of social and adaptive skill acquisition, teachers risk over or underestimating their students’ skill levels, leading to future problems engaging in desired postsecondary goals.” (Smith, Szidon, Ruppar, 2015)  

                Overall, I thought that this article was well written and to the point.  I thought that the authors of this article explained the steps of how to write the goals thoroughly and they were clear while doing explaining.  Also, I liked how the authors gave specific examples of how to write transition plans and they also gave examples of unclear goals and how to change them.  I would recommend this article to any special education teacher who plans to teach high school and will need to make transition plans.  I was able to observe an adult transition meeting at my school, the student did not have autism, however, there is an increasing amount of students with ASD in my school.  Therefore, knowing these steps and how to write clear measurable goals is important for me.

                In conclusion, I found this article about how to write adult transition plans for students with autism informative.  The authors gave clear examples of how to write the goals and they also gave great examples of how to rewrite unclear goals.        

References

Szidon, K., Ruppar, A., & Smith, L. (2015). Five Steps for Developing Effective Transition Plans for High School Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 47(3), 147-152.