Transition

Transition Criteria
Nearly all of the students who attend Children’s Workshop acquire the skills that permit them to benefit from instruction in less restrictive school settings.  We consider the skills they have acquired, how rapidly they acquired those skills, and the programs that are available when we recommend a transition placement.

Students who can learn academics
Many of our students become ready for elementary school academics while still young enough to transition to an elementary school program, but they continue to require a highly structured program emphasizing positive reinforcement, a low student-to-staff ratio, instruction in social skills, and reliable implementation of behavior intervention plans. For these students, we are likely to recommend COOK Education Center’s Foundations Program.

Students who require skills of independent living
For students who are at or are approaching the age limit for enrollment at Children’s Workshop and who continue to require instruction in functional skills and who continue to require a highly-structured program with a low student-to-staff ratio that is based on positive reinforcement for desirable behaviors, we are likely to recommend the COOK Education Center’s Secondary program.

Transition is an IEP team decision
Transition is always a decision of the student’s IEP team and we collaborate closely with the student’s parents and other members of the team to arrive at a placement decision that is optimal for the student. Whether the transition placement is to a program of the COOK Education Center or to a classroom in the student’s public school district, we work hand in hand with teachers and other personnel to develop a plan for transition, ways to measure the success of the transition, and a plan to fade our support systematically. In addition to the high level of staff skill and involvement with each student that characterizes the programs of COOK Education Center, the advantage for our students in transitioning there is that the process is as seamless as possible.

We have identified certain critical skills that help to predict the student’s likelihood of success whatever the transition placement. These include, but are not limited to the following:

• The student attends to instruction involving new skills for at least 10 minutes without displaying problem behavior or disruptive behavior
• The student follows multiple step instructions that include moving away from the teacher and subsequently returning to the teacher
• The student requires only social and/or token reinforcement to acquire new skills
• The student attends to the lead teacher when in a moderate sized group
• The student engages in independent activities for up to 5 minutes without teacher prompting and reinforcement
• The student Is toilet trained at least to the level of voiding on a time schedule
• The student displays problem behaviors, if at all, at frequencies and intensities that are manageable by the transition school personnel