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Looking for Success: Transition Planning for Students with Visual Impairments in the State of Iowa

Blackorby and Wagner (1996) posit that youth with visual impairments are not employed, living independently or attending post-secondary educational sites commensurate with their sighted peers. Literature suggests that students need both work-based and school-based skills to successfully transition to the world of employment and that transition planning is the vehicle used during high school (or sooner if appropriate) to document those needed skills.
This descriptive study was conducted in two phases to review and describe the required skills, teacher quality, and transition planning for transition-aged students with visual impairments in the state of Iowa, known for a stellar educational system. The second objective of this study was to describe the differences in IEPs and TVIs that represented a high, middle and low level of compliance and promising practices, including the number of Expanded Core Curriculum (ECC) content areas (Hatlen, 1996; Pugh & Erin, 1999) documented on the IEPs. Both qualitative and quantitative data analysis were used to answer the following two research questions; 1) What are the levels of compliance and promising practices on transition IEPs for students with visual impairments in Iowa and 2) What variables in the focus areas distinguish a transition IEP that reflects the variability of compliance and promising practices? The hypothesis that a highly qualified TVI would produce a transition IEP that reflected a high level of compliance and promising practices guided this study.
The results found a low to moderate compliance and promising practices reflected on the transition IEPs for students with visual impairments. In addition, IEPs for students with the presence of mental retardation and for students at Iowa Braille School reflected higher levels of compliance, promising practices and instruction. Higher levels of efficacy, instruction, experience, and caseloads were found for TVIs whose IEPs reflected a higher level of compliance and promising practices.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-11302004-105924
Date12 December 2004
CreatorsBlankenship, Karen Elayne
ContributorsDr. Elton Moore, Dr. James Guthrie, Dr. Anne Corn, Dr. Carolyn Hughes, Dr. Richard Percy
PublisherVANDERBILT
Source SetsVanderbilt University Theses
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-11302004-105924/
Rightsunrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report.

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