Maryland IEP Transition Assessment: Tools, Timing, and What the Results Mean

Why Assessments Come Before Goals

Maryland requires transition planning to begin the school year a student turns 14. Before the IEP team writes a single postsecondary goal, they need data — not assumptions — about the student's interests, strengths, preferences, and support needs. That data comes from age-appropriate transition assessments.

IDEA doesn't prescribe which specific assessment tools schools must use, but it does require that postsecondary goals be "based on age-appropriate transition assessments." If your child's IEP contains transition goals that aren't linked to documented assessment results, the goals aren't legally compliant — and more importantly, they're probably not useful.

Types of Transition Assessments

Transition assessments fall into three broad categories, and a thorough evaluation uses tools from each:

Interest and preference inventories identify what the student wants to do. Common tools include the Transition Planning Inventory (TPI), Enderle-Severson Transition Rating Scales, and informal interest surveys. These are especially valuable at age 14-15 when the team is first establishing the student's postsecondary direction.

Aptitude and skills assessments measure what the student can currently do. These include vocational aptitude tests, adaptive behavior scales like the Vineland or ABAS, and functional skills checklists covering daily living, social interaction, and workplace behaviors. DORS may conduct its own vocational assessment when the student enrolls in Pre-ETS or applies for vocational rehabilitation.

Situational and community-based assessments observe the student in real environments. Job shadowing, community-based instruction placements, and work-based learning experiences all generate assessment data about how the student performs outside the classroom. These carry more weight than paper-and-pencil tests for students whose standardized test performance doesn't reflect their actual capabilities.

How Often Assessments Should Happen

Transition assessments aren't a one-time event at age 14. The IEP team should revisit the assessment information as the student's interests, abilities, and circumstances change. A 14-year-old who expresses interest in animal care may, by 17, have discovered a passion for computer work through a DORS Pre-ETS job exploration experience.

Each annual IEP review should document:

• Which assessments were administered or updated
• What the results indicate about the student's current interests and abilities
• How those results informed the postsecondary goals being written or revised

If the team skips assessments and carries forward outdated information year after year, request updated assessment information in writing and ask how the postsecondary goals are based on age-appropriate transition assessments.

Connecting Assessment Results to Real Outcomes

Assessment data should flow directly into three products:

Postsecondary transition goals in employment, education/training, and independent living — each grounded in what the assessments revealed about the student's direction and capacity.

Annual IEP goals that build the specific skills identified as gaps between where the student is now and where their postsecondary goals point.

Transition services — the concrete activities, referrals, and experiences that move the student toward their goals. If an assessment shows strong mechanical aptitude, the transition services should include a DORS work-based learning placement in that field, not a generic classroom activity.

What Parents Should Watch For

The most common problem: assessments that are too narrow or too superficial. A single interest checklist completed in 15 minutes doesn't constitute an "age-appropriate transition assessment" sufficient to drive multi-year planning.

Ask the IEP team:

• Which specific assessment instruments were used?
• Who administered them, and was the student in a comfortable setting?
• Were community-based or situational assessments included, or only paper-and-pencil tools?
• How do the results compare to last year's assessments — has anything changed?

If the answers are vague, you have grounds to request a more comprehensive transition assessment. Put the request in writing and ask the school to respond in writing, including its explanation if it declines.

The Assessment-to-Exit Pipeline

Transition assessments at age 14-15 establish direction. Assessments at 16-17 refine the plan and can inform agency referrals and the documentation gathered for DORS and DDA. Assessments at 18-20 generate the evidence base for the Maryland Summary of Performance, the exit document that adult service providers use to understand what worked in school.

The Maryland IEP Transition to Adulthood Guide includes an assessment tracking worksheet that connects each evaluation to the postsecondary goals and agency referrals it should inform — keeping the assessment-to-action pipeline visible across the entire transition timeline.

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