NH Postsecondary Transition Assessment: Age-Appropriate Evaluations for IEP Planning

Why Transition Assessments Are Required

Under IDEA and New Hampshire's state administrative rules, measurable postsecondary goals in the IEP must be based on age-appropriate transition assessments. This isn't optional language — it's an Indicator 13 compliance requirement. If a student's IEP has transition goals that aren't connected to documented assessment results, the IEP is technically non-compliant.

The logic is straightforward: you can't write meaningful goals about where a student is heading after school unless you've actually assessed where they are right now — their interests, strengths, skills, and support needs across employment, education, training, and independent living domains.

In practice, transition assessments in New Hampshire range from thorough, multi-tool evaluations that drive genuinely useful IEP goals to a single interest inventory administered once and never referenced again. The quality depends entirely on the SAU, the transition coordinator, and whether the family knows what to ask for.

What "Age-Appropriate" Means

"Age-appropriate" means the assessment is appropriate for the student's age and postsecondary context — measuring skills, interests, and aptitudes relevant to adult life, not only academic grade-level performance.

A reading comprehension test is an academic assessment. A workplace readiness evaluation that measures whether the student can follow multi-step directions, manage time, communicate with coworkers, and handle constructive feedback is a transition assessment.

Age-appropriate transition assessments fall into three categories:

Formal assessments — standardized tools with documented reliability and validity:

• Transition Planning Inventory (TPI-2) — covers employment, education, daily living, leisure, community participation, health, self-determination, communication, and relationships
• AIR Self-Determination Scale — measures the student's capacity and opportunity for self-determination
• Casey Life Skills Assessment — evaluates independent living readiness across practical domains
• Enderle-Severson Transition Rating Scale — rates functional skills in five domains

Informal assessments — non-standardized but structured:

• Interviews with the student about their interests, preferences, and goals
• Situational assessments (observing the student in a work setting or community environment)
• Parent and teacher questionnaires about the student's functional skills
• Student self-assessment checklists

Curriculum-based assessments — embedded in the student's current program:

• Work samples from community-based instruction or work experiences
• Performance data from Pre-ETS activities through VR New Hampshire
• Portfolio evidence of skill development over time

Assessment information may come from formal or informal tools, but it should provide enough information to ground measurable postsecondary goals. A single interest checklist can be one source of information, but the team should consider whether it addresses the student's relevant transition needs.

How Assessments Should Drive IEP Goals

The transition assessment results should directly inform every postsecondary goal and transition service in the IEP. The connection should be explicit and traceable:

Assessment finding: TPI-2 indicates strong interest in food preparation and hospitality; situational assessment at a local restaurant shows the student can follow a visual recipe but struggles with time management when multiple orders are pending.

Postsecondary goal: "After leaving school, [Student] will obtain competitive employment in the food service industry with initial job coaching support."

Annual IEP goal: "Given a visual task sequence and a timer, [Student] will independently complete three concurrent food preparation tasks within the required timeframe in 4 of 5 trials, as measured by job coach observation data."

Transition service: Community-based work experience at a food service employer, coordinated with VR Pre-ETS work-based learning activities.

When you see that chain — assessment → postsecondary goal → annual goal → service — the transition plan is doing what it's supposed to do. When you see a postsecondary goal that says "Student will explore career options" with no assessment cited, the chain is broken.

What to Do When the Assessment Is Missing or Thin

If your child's transition IEP contains postsecondary goals but you can't find the assessment results that support them, or if the only assessment on file is a one-page interest checklist from three years ago, you have grounds to act:

1. Request the assessment data in writing. Ask the transition coordinator or case manager: "What age-appropriate transition assessments were used to develop [Student]'s postsecondary goals, and where are the results documented?" If they can't produce them, the IEP goals don't have a compliant foundation.

2. Request new assessments. You can request that the IEP team conduct current, comprehensive transition assessments. Be specific about what you want — "I'd like a formal transition assessment covering employment aptitudes, independent living readiness, and self-determination, plus a situational assessment in a community work setting." Put it in writing.

3. Ask for the assessment results to be presented at the IEP meeting. The results should be discussed with the team before postsecondary goals are written or updated. If the team writes goals first and justifies them after, the process is backwards.

4. Check the assessment domains. Indicator 13 requires postsecondary goals in education/training and employment at minimum, plus independent living "where appropriate." If the transition assessment only covers career interests but doesn't evaluate independent living skills, and your child has needs in that area, the assessment is incomplete.

Assessment Timing and Frequency

New Hampshire doesn't specify exactly how often transition assessments must be updated, but best practice — and the standard the NH Department of Education monitors under Indicator 13 — is that assessments are current enough to meaningfully inform the goals being written at each annual IEP review.

A reasonable schedule:

• Initial transition assessment at age 14 (when the Course of Study is first written) or age 16 (when the full transition plan begins) — ideally both, with increasing depth
• Updated assessments when the student's circumstances change significantly (new disability diagnosis, new medication affecting functioning, a work experience that reveals previously unknown strengths or challenges)
• Exit assessment information in the student's final year can inform the Summary of Performance (SOP) that the school must provide when the student leaves special education

If the student's postsecondary goals haven't changed in three years and the supporting assessments are from age 14, the goals are likely stale. The student at 19 has different skills, interests, and needs than the student at 14. Updated assessments ensure the transition plan reflects who the student is now, not who they were five years ago.

The New Hampshire IEP Transition to Adulthood Guide includes a transition assessment request letter template and a worksheet for connecting assessment results to postsecondary goals, annual IEP goals, and specific transition services.

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