University of Oklahoma
Zarrow Center for Learning Enrichment

Student-Directed Transition Planning

Why SDTP?

The IEP transition pages need to reflect student interests and skills, and be developed with ample student input. We learned from our research on secondary IEP meetings that adults talk to adults to develop the IEP transition pages, and that students seldom join in this conversation (Martin, Van Dycke, Christensen, et al. 2006; Martin, Van Dycke, Greene, et al. 2006). By default, too many transition pages reflect adult thoughts about the student and not what students’ think.

IDEA 2004 requests that the transition sections of students’ IEP match students’ interests, capitalize on their skills, be mediated by their needs, and that students and family provide input into the IEP transition discussion. For this to happen, students need to be specifically taught transition knowledge and provided an opportunity to develop their transition plan in partnership with their family and teachers.

Often transition planning takes a singular focus upon the student and ignores the interests and needs of the family and the student’s community. To increase the likelihood of graduating and making a successful transition from high school, whenever possible educators and students need to engage in collaborative transition dialogue with family members prior to the IEP meeting. SDTP provides a means for educators, students, and family members to form a partnership to build a meaningful and successful transition plan, and for students to learn the information needed to actively participate at their IEP meetings.