Transition Toolbox—Why You Need It

JobTips Transition Toolbox is soon to be released! We have spent months sharing insight into how Do2Learn and it's team of wonderful professionals have built this fantastic web-based curriculum. Now we are going to share some facts about how Transition Toolbox is needed in your school district, county, system, etc.

These are facts that can be used when you go to administration to let them know how EVERYONE in your school system (students, teachers, administration, etc.) will benefit from utilizing Transition Toolbox.

• 1 in 88 individuals in the U.S. are now diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder
• As of Fall 2011, there were about 370,000 U.S. Special Education students ages 6-21 identified for Special Education in the Autism category
• From 1997-2006 (this is the most recent federal data available), autism was one of only two disability areas (2 out of 14) where there was a significant increase in the number of students served under that disability category. U.S. Department of Education reports that Autism is the fastest-growing developmental disability category.
• From 1997-2006, there has been a significant increase on the number of students identified as having Autism in the U.S. who graduated with a regular high school diploma (33.6% increased to 57.1%).
• Approximately 50,000 adolescents with ASD will be turning 18 this year (2012).
• The number of individuals with Autism who were served by Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) in the U.S. has increased substantially. For example, between 2002-2006, the number of consumers with Autism increased by 121%.
• When individuals with Autism served by VR were compared to persons with other conditions, on a per capita basis, individuals with Autism are among the most costly to serve.
• Up to 90% of job losses in individuals with disabilities are due to problems within occupational soft skills areas such as social communication and self-regulation.
• Youth with an ASD seem to be uniquely at risk for negative post-school outcomes, as compared to those with other types of disabilities. While only 55% of those with an ASD are employed in the six years beyond high school, 86% of those with a speech or language impairment, 94% of those with a learning disability, and 69% of those with an intellectual disability have found employment.
• There are interventions for those with ASD that have been identified as “best practice” and “evidence-based practices”. These have been identified by the National Autism Center and the National Research Council. Some of these practices are also identified as evidence-based interventions for individuals with other learning needs (e.g. intellectual disability, emotional disability).
• Transition Planning, as mandated by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), is designed to be within a results-oriented process, that is focused on improving the academic and functional achievement of the individual with a disability to facilitate the individual's movement from school to post-school activities, including vocational education, integrated employment (including supported employment), etc.
• Students who graduate with a regular high school diploma follow the Standard Course of Study/the Common Core State Standards. Within the curriculum, we have identified explicit links between the majority of our intervention topics and specific curriculum standards.

So take time to review our previous blogs look at how Transition Toolbox will assist you and your students with Autism in preparing for success after high school!

TransitionToolbox—Do2Learn Does It Again

TransitionToolbox—What's the Plan?

TransitionToolbox—Where Do We Start?

TransitionToolbox—Transition 101

TransitionToolbox—How Does ASD Affect Transitions?

TransitionToolbox—Organization & Central Coherence

TransitionToolbox—Theory of Mind and Perspective-Taking

TransitionToolbox—Self Determination by Beginning with the End in Mind

TransitionToolbox—An Employment Preparation Curriculum

Transition Toolbox—An Employment Preparation Curriculum

We have been talking about the JobTips Transition Toolbox for several weeks and the time is drawing near for it's release in the Fall of 2012. I want to take this time to give readers a good overview of what they can expect from TT.

This web-based curriculum is designed to support students with Autism Spectrum Disorder and other learning differences who are bound for post-secondary settings or competitive employment upon graduation from high school. It is also appropriate for use with adults with such differences who struggle to obtain fulfilling and lasting competitive employment. The curriculum targets 61 intervention topics and offers approximately 450 printable visual supports, along with 87 self-assessments and instructor assessments.

• Unit 1 Assessment and Intervention: Our framework in teaching the intervention topics identified in the Career Planning, Job Seeking, and Job Keeping curriculum units that represents the integration of evidence-based behavioral strategies and visual supports. There are 18 sections that comprehensively address these instructional principles and strategies.

• Unit 2 Career Planning: Contains 6 expansive intervention topics describing a range of specific work skills (“hard skills”) that the instructor might target in career development and emphasizes the importance of an experientially-based exploration of vocational interests as a means to support self-assessment. This unit offers over 50 printable visual supports and 35 printable self-assessments and instructor assessments.

• Unit 3 Job Seeking: Contains 15 intervention topics targeting a range of skills and activities necessary to find and get a job. This unit includes over 100 printable visual supports, dozens of video scenarios and video modeling examples, and 20 printable self-assessments and instructor assessments.

• Unit 4 Job Keeping: Contains 40 intervention topics. This unit addresses the principle challenges of Social Communication, Organization, and Self-Regulation (S.O.S.!) that often impact one’s ability to maintain employment. This unit provides over 300 printable visual supports, dozens of video scenarios and video modeling examples, and 32 printable self-assessments and instructor assessments.

• Unit 5 Self-Assessment Library: Houses the 87 printable student self-assessments and instructor assessments that align with all topics within Career Planning, Job Seeking, and Job Keeping units.

Please look over our past Transition Toolbox blogs for more specific information about the “nuts and bolts” of the make up of the curriculum. We will be bringing you more information as we get closer to the release date, including a detailed sneak-peek for our blog readers!

STAY TUNED!

Transition Toolbox—Self Determination by Beginning with the End in Mind

The JobTIPS Transition Toolbox provides a set of assessment instruments and intervention activities that support self-determination in career planning, job-seeking, and job-keeping skills for students who are either job bound or post-secondary education bound after high school. The focus of the Toolbox is independence in vocational and educational environments.

Given that there are often more priorities in preparing for adulthood than can reasonably be addressed by school staff alone, this task of prioritizing is a challenge for IEP teams that must address transition planning. When all members of the team come together to plan an IEP, one goal is to list the various needs. When prioritizing, it is worthwhile to consider that the school environment is only one environment for learning and applying vocational, residential, and community skills. In looking at the big picture in transition planning, there will be ‘instructional goals’ on which the teaching team will focus to support application of specific targeted skills. There should also be ‘linkage goals,’ targets that other members of the larger support team, including family, friends, volunteer supports and other community support personnel, would address in environments other than the school. The IEP team must determine which priorities should be addressed as instructional goals. The Transition Toolbox will help the instructor to determine those instructional goals, those prioritized skills on which the individual with ASD and his circle of support can build the broad range of skills to have a successful vocational career.

The user is encouraged to use Assessment & Intervention (A&I) as a framework in teaching the skills identified in the curriculum units. Each of the curriculum units provide both a detailed description of possible skills and goals for the student and an adjustable self-assessment instrument to support self-determination in skill development. The strategies (identified in Assessment and Intervention) necessary to build independent skills are multiple and often layered. No single strategy is often sufficiently strong to support independent performance. In addressing specific goals in each curriculum unit, a combination of environmental modification, priming, motivation, visual supports, modeling, prompting, shaping, reinforcement, and programming for generalization is required to build successful independence.

As an instructor working to cultivate the capacity for self-determination within your students as they approach the transition out of high school, where do you begin? You begin with the end in mind. These four units engage you in a systematic instructional process of targeting skills that are essential to your student’s current and future success:

• Career Planning: This unit describes a range of specific work skills to consider in career development and emphasizes the importance of an experientially-based exploration of vocational interests as a means to support self-assessment.
• Job-Seeking Skills: This unit describes the range of skills necessary to actually find and get a job.
• Job-Keeping Skills: This unit addresses the principle challenges of Social Communication, Organization, and Self-Regulation (S.O.S.!) that often impact one’s ability to maintain employment. It describes the range of often challenging work behaviors that can and should be addressed in job exploration and training.
• Self-Assessment: We strongly encourage you to begin with the Assessment & Intervention Unit (A&I) , as it is the framework in teaching the skills identified in the curriculum units.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Transition Toolbox—Theory of Mind and Perspective-Taking

As we discussed in our past two blogs regarding Transition Toolbox and Transition Planning (Transition Toolbox—How Does ASD Affect Transitions? and Transition Toolbox—Organization & Central Coherence) we are continuing to address core features that have a significant impact on individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and the transition process.

There are significant differences for individuals with ASD in understanding facial expressions, body language, actions, and words to determine another person’s thoughts or perspective. Our ‘social world’ values the skill of recognizing another person’s thoughts and actions and using that information in leisure and work activities. Acting considerately towards customers is but one example of how theory of mind and perspective taking is expected within work environments. An inability to recognize the behavior of co-workers and to adapt personal behavior often leads to misunderstanding and to the opinion that the individual with ASD is rude or hurtful. In our culture, getting along with co-workers and supervisors are required behaviors to be successful on the job.

Picking out the important social details in an interaction, and adjusting personal behavior as a result, are the skills of social problem-solving. Individuals with ASD may not see the importance of adjusting personal behavior, may not know what to do instead, or may not remember what to do when the social situation arises that requires the adjusted social behavior.

Individuals with ASD need systematic practice in applying specific social communication skills in multiple settings. The JobTIPS Transition Toolbox provides multiple tools to address these social issues as they impact one’s efforts to find and keep a job. Specific social communication goals are outlined in the Job-Seeking Unit and the Job-Keeping Unit. Specific instructional strategies and hands-on visual supports to assist practice of social communication skills are provided. Also, the tools within the Self-Assessment Unit may assist the individual in identifying areas of improvement and determining social aspects of work environments that may better fit the individual.

Transition Toolbox—How Does ASD Affect Transitions?

There are a number of reasons why many individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) struggle to successfully transition from high school to the workforce. It may be difficult for some individuals with ASD to accurately identify how their strengths and needs align with potential vocational areas. Moreover, identifying how to apply the unique strengths of individuals with ASD within mainstream post-secondary education and work environments may pose a challenge for the transition team as well.

In addition, differences in social communication skills can make job situations difficult for someone on the spectrum. Interviewing, talking to a supervisor, making small talk with co-workers, and asking for help can be challenging. Because social rules and norms do not always come naturally to individuals with ASD, the process of getting a job and sustaining employment can be very confusing. Coping with stress and anxiety in the workplace is crucial to success yet often a major challenge for individuals with ASD.

The range of vocational abilities, of interaction skills, and of cognitive problem-solving skills in individuals with a diagnosis of ASD is remarkably broad. Yet there are certain common elements that, if carefully considered, can support effective transition planning even in this diverse group of learners. These common elements, or core features, are pivotal in how the Transition Toolbox is organized and presented. Depending on the individual with ASD, certain core features will be more prominent than others.

(We invite you to follow our blog by email to be sure to get the latest information regarding JobTIPS Transition Toolbox and other great Do2Learn educational information.)

It is important to understand the core features that have a significant impact on the transition process. We will address these core features in future Transition Toolbox blogs.

• Transition Toolbox—What's the Plan?
• Transition Toolbox--Do2Learn Does It Again
• Transition Toolbox—Where Do We Start?
• Transition Toolbox--Transition 101

Do2Learn JobTIPS—Making Midtown News

What a pleasure it was to answer a call last week from Chelsea Kellner. Chelsea is a reporter from the Midtown Raleigh News and she was interested in talking to someone from Do2Learn about the recent report regarding the findings that 1 in 3 young adults with Autism have little to no paid job experience or college schooling after high school. 

Chelsea had heard about JobTIPS and wanted to know more and we were happy to oblige. So in today's Midtown Raleigh News (front page too!) there is a wonderful article titled “Job-hunt help for adults with autism, Raleigh-based site offers free services”.

Please check out a few of our previous blogs about JobTIPS.

• What's Your Scene? - JobTIPS
  
  
  
• Environmental Demands on the Job – JobTIPS
  
  
  
• ASNC and Do2Learn Partner—JobTIPS