Connecticut Transition Assessments and Course of Study Planning

Why Transition Assessments Matter More Than Most Families Realize

Transition assessments are the evidence base for everything in your child's transition plan. The Postsecondary Outcome Goal Statements (PSOGS), the Course of Study, the transition services, and the annual goals — all of these are supposed to flow from assessment data about your child's interests, strengths, preferences, and functional needs.

Connecticut requires these assessments to be ongoing and age-appropriate, conducted annually throughout the transition years starting at age 14. That means your child isn't assessed once and then planned around for eight years. The assessments should evolve each year, reflecting the student's development, changing interests, and emerging adult self-awareness.

When transition assessments are done well, they produce a progressively clearer picture of who your child is and what they need to succeed after school. When they're done as a compliance checkbox — a 15-minute interest survey and a form letter — they produce generic transition goals that don't actually serve the student.

Common Assessment Tools Used in Connecticut

The Connecticut Transition Assessment Resource Manual, published by the CSDE and SERC (State Education Resource Center), catalogs the assessment tools available to Connecticut educators. Common instruments include:

The AIR Self-Determination Assessment: Measures how much the student values and practices self-determination — setting goals, making choices, expressing preferences, and taking action. Both student and educator complete parallel forms, which reveals gaps between what the student thinks they're doing and what the team observes.

The ARC Self-Determination Scale: Another self-determination measure that assesses autonomy, self-regulation, psychological empowerment, and self-realization. The results help the PPT write goals around self-advocacy and decision-making.

Vocational interest inventories: Tools like the Career Clusters Interest Survey or the O*NET Interest Profiler identify the student's occupational interests and aptitudes. These feed directly into the employment PSOGS.

Functional assessments: Evaluations of daily living skills, community participation, social interaction, and adaptive behavior. For students with intellectual disabilities, these often include standardized adaptive behavior scales (like the ABAS-3) and can inform both the IEP and DDS eligibility determinations.

Situational assessments: Real-world observations of the student in workplace settings, community environments, or social situations. These are harder to administer than paper-based tools but produce far richer data about how the student actually performs outside the classroom.

The best transition assessment batteries combine multiple tools across different domains — self-determination, vocational interest, functional skills, and situational performance — rather than relying on a single instrument.

How Assessments Connect to the Course of Study

The Course of Study is a multi-year description of the academic, functional, and community-based classes and activities your child will take throughout their remaining high school years. It's a required component of the transition IEP, and it's supposed to connect directly to the student's PSOGS.

Here's how the connection should work in practice:

1. Assessment results identify interests and strengths. A vocational assessment reveals the student is interested in culinary arts and performs well in hands-on, structured tasks.

2. PSOGS reflect those interests. The employment PSOGS reads: "After high school, [student] will work in the food service industry in a supported employment setting."

3. The Course of Study maps the path. The student takes culinary arts electives in 10th and 11th grade, participates in a community-based work experience at a local restaurant in 11th and 12th grade, and completes a food handler certification during their transition program years.

When this chain breaks — when assessments don't inform goals, or goals don't connect to coursework — students end up taking whatever classes have space rather than building a deliberate skill trajectory toward their stated postsecondary outcomes.

What to Look for in Your Child's Assessments

At the annual PPT meeting, ask these specific questions about transition assessments:

"What assessments were administered this year, and what changed from last year?" If the answer is "we used the same interest survey," the assessment isn't evolving with your child. A 16-year-old's interests and self-awareness are different from when they were 14 — the assessment battery should reflect that growth.

"How do the assessment results inform the proposed PSOGS?" The PPT should be able to draw a direct line from assessment data to each goal. If the employment PSOGS says "student will work in an office setting" but no vocational assessment has ever evaluated office-related skills, the goal is disconnected from the evidence.

"Which Core Transition Skills are being assessed and targeted?" Connecticut's Core Transition Skills framework provides the competency areas that should be reflected in both the assessments and the resulting IEP goals. Ask the team to identify which skills they assessed, which are areas of strength, and which need targeted instruction.

"Are situational or community-based assessments being used?" Paper-based surveys and scales have their place, but they don't capture how a student actually performs in real workplace or community settings. If your child hasn't been observed in an authentic work environment, the vocational data is incomplete.

The Course of Study as a Strategic Document

The Course of Study isn't a passive reflection of what classes are available. It's a strategic plan that should be shaped by the student's interests, assessment data, and postsecondary goals. For families, this means:

Review it annually. The Course of Study should be updated at each PPT meeting as assessment data and the student's interests evolve. A course sequence set at age 14 and never adjusted will almost certainly be misaligned by age 17.

Push for community-based experiences. Classes taken in a school building are valuable, but community-based work experiences, job shadows, and internships provide the real-world exposure that builds employable skills. These should appear in the Course of Study as deliberately planned activities, not afterthoughts.

Connect it to post-school programs. If your child will likely enter a transition program between 18 and 22, the Course of Study should build skills that prepare them for community-based programming — not just additional academic credits they won't need.

The Connecticut IEP Transition to Adulthood Guide includes assessment review checklists and Course of Study planning worksheets that help families evaluate whether their child's transition plan is grounded in real data or generic templates.

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