Transition Services Information for Parents

Definition of Transition Services

The latest definition of transition services under IDEA 2004 is fully explained in this section

For many years, educators have been concerned about the lack of success in adult life for students with disabilities. Research has shown that a large proportion of special education students did not go for further training and often did not receive post-school support and services. As these children "aged out" (at age 21 students were no longer eligible for a free and appropriate education including services and support) of the educational system, the families felt that they were being dropped into a void. While there were many services out in the community, parents were left to their own devices and would find out about such services and supports by chance. Parents and students were confronted with a complex array of service options and resources, each with unique roles, services, funding sources, forms, and eligibility requirements. The need for a collaborative, readily accessible system was obvious.

What seemed to be missing was the bridge between a student's school system and services for post-secondary school life. As a result, the concept of transitional services was developed to provide students who have special needs with a more structured path to adulthood.

Numerous definitions of what constitutes transition exist in the literature. According to Levinson (1998), the term transition has been used to refer to different processes within the educational environment (for example, it has been used to describe movement from preschool to kindergarten and from elementary school to junior high to school). He defines transition as the process of facilitating the postschool adjustment of students, particularly students with disabilities. Postschool adjustment is broadly defined to include adjustment to work, leisure, and independent functioning in the community. Furthermore, deFur (1999) states that “transition refers to a change in status from behaving primarily as a student to assuming emergent adult roles. These roles include employment, participating in post-secondary education, maintaining a home, becoming appropriately involved in the community, and experiencing satisfactory personal and social relationships (the DCDT Position on Transition, Halpern, 1994)

Simply put, transition is helping students and family think about their life after high school and identify long-range goals designing the high school experience to ensure that students gain the skills and connections they need to achieve these goals the provision of funds and services to local school districts to assist in the transition process.

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