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• AT Institute 2007: Transition & AT

Related Center

• Family Center on Technology and Disability

Description

In the disability community, the term “transition” has traditionally referred to the period of time during which a child is prepared to leave high school and move into a post-secondary school, job, or community living. The actual age at which school systems have been legally required to design transition plans for students with disabilities has ranged from age 14 to 16. (Current federal law requires that such plans are in place by age 16, but many professionals continue to urge earlier transition planning.)

In this discussion, we have chosen to take a much broader approach, to include all of the significant points of transition in the life of a child with disabilities. That might begin as early as taking the child home from the hospital and certainly includes transition from the home environment to daycare or pre-school. Other key transition points include the move from elementary school to middle school and then on to high school.

At each of these times, AT assessments need to be made; often accompanied by evaluations of previous equipment trials. New people need to be integrated into a child’s support team and information will need to be transferred from those who previously worked with her. New procedures and even new agencies may be in place and thus there is a lot to learn!

Transition points are often times of particular stress for families. Just as they thought they had a plan in place, were familiar with the people and places that were important in their child’s life, those things change. Often the assumptions on which a child’s AT equipment had been issued are challenged by those in the new environment and parents find themselves having to start all over, providing medical documentation and other paperwork. Even when everyone is of good will and eager to make the transition a smooth one, bureaucratic rules, funding limitations, and lack of inter-agency communication can create significant setbacks.

In this discussion, we’ll share best practices that can make all the difference between a successful and a frustrating transition. We’ll identify the elements that tend to be common among transition phases and discuss their impact on securing and/or maintaining appropriate AT devices and services. (During transitions, AT services can be critically important.) We’ll also look at transition plans and what should go into them.