This paper encourages the reader to envision a future of opportunity and potential for youth with intellectual disabilities. The authors suggest a set of goals to help young adults and their families keep the bar of expectations high. Suggested goals are discussed in depth and include: self determination and self advocacy for successful planning, transition into lifelong learning, self-directed employment success and satisfaction, overcoming the disincentives to work, moving into the neighborhood, financial security, and emerging into adulthood.
Resource Library
Welcome to the Think College Resource Library
The library includes carefully selected resources on a wide range of topics related to postsecondary education for people with intellectual disability.
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This reader-friendly chapter introduces concepts, strategies, tools and resources to help parents ensure their son or daughter enjoys a meaningful life after high school. The author recommends preparing for transition during the youth's first year of high school, using a planning approach such as Person Centered Planning. The chapter presents an overview of youth's rights under section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, defines accommodations, and provides examples of accommodations currently used in college settings. Included are descriptions of resources for income supports (e.g.
This brief provides an overview of some successful models of transition services being implemented in postsecondary settings, describes one such model implemented by the Baltimore City Public School System in three local colleges, and presents some of the implications and strategies for success of this model. Resource can be found at: http://www.ncset.org/publications/viewdesc.asp?id=3395
This brief informs readers about models of postsecondary programs for students with ID, describing them in terms of level of inclusion: substantially separate, mixed/hybrid and inclusive. It also provides information on program funding and includes a list of resources.
The purpose of this article is to identify legal issues concerning the transition planning process through a qualitative analysis of administrative and judicial decisions addressing transition services for students with disabilities. The issues that emerged from the analysis were categorized into five prevalent themes: agency contacts, student involvement, individualization of the transition plan, district obligations, and appropriateness of the transition plan. The themes included both procedural and substantive components.
This article discusses how agencies representing jobseekers with disabilities should approach businesses and market their clients by using a strengths based approach rather than focusing on deficits and disability.
In Canada, the struggle for people with intellectual disabilities to gain recognition as citizens and to be included in the mainstream has gone on for more than 30 years (Wolfsenberger, 1980; Brown & Smith, 1992). For the past 10 years, the Canadian government and advocates for persons with intellectual disabilities have shifted their efforts from appeals and legislation on the basis of human rights in favour of an emphasis on full citizenship for members of this systemically excluded segment of the population.
This book chapter presents an overview of dual enrollment, an inclusive postsecondary education option for students with intellectual disabilities. The chapter begins with a definition of intellectual disability and a discussion of post school outcomes for students with disabilities. The chapter summarizes the results of a national survey of post-secondary educational options for youth with intellectual disabilities, and briefly describes the characteristics of three program models: substantially separate, mixed, and inclusive individual support.
The primary purpose of interagency transition teams serving youth with disabilities is to improve the post school outcomes for youth who are transitioning from secondary education to adult life. This resource is published to assist state-level transition coordinators as well as for persons charged with the responsibility of forming, conducting, and evaluating the performance of interagency transition teams serving youth with disabilities.
A survey was conducted with 234 parents of secondary-level students with high- and low-incidence disabilities in two urban school systems about the importance of secondary instructional domains and transition planning and their post-school expectations for their son or daughter.