Transition With a Capital "T"
Ask anyone around you to define the word “transition,” and you will likely get a variety of responses. In the world of special education, Transition has a very specific meaning, yet is misunderstood by many.
The federal laws (IDEA) around Individual Education Plans (IEP) require school districts to create a Transition Plan for all students with disabilities by the time they are 16 years old. In the state of Wisconsin, that requirement begins at age 14. This means that IEP teams and families must be ready by the time a child is in 8th grade to write a Transition Plan that provides guidance and direction for the remainder of the child’s public school education. This Postsecondary Transition Plan, or PTP, often lacks meaning for the student and their family and is many times created without the student even being present, as it is uncommon for 14-year-olds with disabilities to be actively engaged in creating their IEPs. For more specific information on the important aspects of a PTP, please check out Margaret’s Notebook post from 2020 on this topic.
Meaningful participation
As a parent of two adult children, I know that when they were 14 years old, they sure didn’t know what they wanted to pursue in terms of postsecondary education or a career. Additionally, their public high school provided them with little personal guidance toward that end, save the assigned guidance counselors who were on hand for a couple of meetings to get the balls rolling on their college applications. What they did have was access to a variety of school courses, extracurricular activities, high school sports teams, and part time jobs that helped them make informed decisions when it was time to think about what was next after their high school graduations.
For example, my son’s experiences in his high school AP German classes helped him decide to add German as one of his majors in college. My daughter’s good grade on an architectural design project in one of her art classes helped her decide that she wanted to pursue a major in interior design. Most importantly, because of this access and their abilities to participate in all that high school offered, my children also had parents who held high expectations for what they could and should do beyond high school.
On the contrary, students with autism often have very different high school experiences than neurotypical students without disabilities. Since autism is a social disability that is often accompanied by anxiety, depression, or sensory sensitivities, autistic high school students struggle to access the bounty of extracurricular clubs, activities, sports, and academically challenging courses. Multiple years of multiple failures to participate meaningfully alongside their neurotypical peers creates low confidence that can contribute to low personal and parental expectations of what’s possible for their futures. The messaging to families is clear that even when a student shows a particular interest in something, that it is merely that: an interest.
Leveraging interests
For autistic students in particular, there are often efforts made to stop the student from talking about or engaging in his interest, as this gets in the way of the topic at hand in a high school classroom. Thinking about how to leverage that interest into a postsecondary education or career is often not considered. An example would be an autistic student having robust interests in both Pokemon and drawing. Maybe that student spends much of his free time drawing different Pokemon and creating elaborate stories about them in his sketchbooks. Despite the best efforts of his parents to get him into high school art classes and the high school drawing club, the autistic student resists them or cannot access or engage meaningfully in them in order to understand the “why” behind these opportunities. For the student, the art class and the drawing club just become two more places where he is unable to find success since the definition of success in high school has been created for the student without autism. Additionally, the high school art teacher, faced with a full schedule and hundreds of students in a day, doesn’t know how to help this student access her class. The same student’s IEP case manager doesn’t have the capacity to assist with art class accommodations since he is busy trying to help his students with disabilities access courses like math and english.
In light of these participation barriers, it’s no surprise that a 14-year-old autistic student would be unable to supply genuine responses to the standard “interest inventory” that is often used to create a student’s transition plan. The student’s limited experiences, low confidence, and poor understanding of what’s possible often make these inventories useless. Without meaningful access to learning environments, extracurricular activities, social experiences, and the community at large, the student has little from which to draw when asked about whether she likes to work on a team or by herself on a project or whether she likes to work with her hands or is more of a thinker.
Breaking down participation barriers
For autistic students and their families, Transition is a particularly challenging time of life that extends far beyond the 1-2 years after high school. For these humans, the on-ramp is often longer, the skill building takes more time, and their confidence needs time to grow! Having a meaningful, self-directed PTP is critical to understanding what has to happen NOW for an autistic student so that she can be ready for what lies after high school.
For example, in addition to taking down barriers to access in the high school classroom, Transition teams must consider what other participation barriers exist for autistic students. What gets in the way of their abilities to join choir or the coding club? Very often, it’s not poor singing skills or the lack of desire to learn a computer language, but the same barriers that interfere with overall participation. In addition to bringing down participation barriers at the organization level, students with autism need to learn how to leverage strategies in the areas of sensory skills and communication. They need to feel confident that the risks they take in classroom and extracurricular environments will have payoffs for their futures. Their parents need to feel supported in helping their children take these risks. In the context of a public high school, organizations like Best Buddies can help bridge access to extracurriculars. Outside of the school setting, an organization like Islands of Brilliance can provide important experiences for autistic students.
Students' personal reflections can lead to future ideas and opportunities
IOB’s Digital Academy (DA) offers high school students, ages 14+, chances to be reflective about themselves and discover the uses for their interests, strengths, and challenges. Participants who are accepted into Digital Academy go through a series of onboarding workshops designed to give them the chance to think of themselves as workers and creators who have something to contribute to society and to their own personal and professional growth. One activity that DA students complete is a reflection that asks them to think about who they were 10 years ago, who they are now, and who they plan to be in 10 years. They must consider what their “jobs” were then, are now, and will be in the future.
For many of our new DA students, 10 years ago they were elementary school children whose jobs were to learn and play. This activity proves itself to be a meaningful exercise in thinking about the past and present and how these can inform the future. Sadly, I once had a 19-year-old DA student tell me that 10 years in the future he will be a cashier at a grocery store because, in his words, “what’s realistic for me, anyway?” It was clear that his past experiences clouded his perception of what he can actually do or what’s possible for his future. We are happy to report that three years later, this student is working on a graphic design degree at a technical school, has a part-time job, and is participating in social experiences both online and in person. The confidence he gained from having meaningful experiences around his areas of interest at IOB has created higher personal and parental expectations of what’s possible!
What’s next? How can you support your student?
If you are a parent or teacher of an elementary or middle school student with autism, consider how you might help your student leverage his interests in learning environments. Consider what it means to participate and be included. Reflect on your own school experiences and determine which experiences were meaningful for you and which experiences were important for your future. For example, when I was in school many years ago, I valued the chance I had to participate on the swim team and practice every day with the other team members. While I wasn’t best friends with my swim teammates, having shared experiences at the pool provided connection and confidence that I could bring to other social environments. I was also proud that I could complete the difficult workouts which helped me persevere in other challenging settings that I didn’t find as meaningful.
In the spirit of providing accessible environments, ask yourself what participation looks like for all students in a classroom and what big changes can happen so that all students feel like the classroom is designed for their unique learning styles. Think about how these same participation barriers can be lifted in extracurricular activities to create access for those with disabilities. Ask your student what is getting in the way and ask them what could be different.
Finally, when your student with an IEP needs to create a Transition Plan, ponder together their interests and strengths and find ways to help them make connections between participation in school experiences and postsecondary experiences. If used effectively, a Transition Plan can be a tool that evolves throughout a student’s time in high school to provide meaningful experiences that can inform life after high school.
