Andrea Maier Dr.

Ann Sebald Advanced Assessment in Special Education EDSE 321 September 20, 2013

Transition Assessment When you look at the word advocacy a few things my run through your head. Advocacy through my eyes is speaking up and know what you need. This can come in different ways from researching colleges all the way up to what you want to do for your career. Advocacy is knowing how to obtain the knowledge of how to gain your independents. When doing this advocacy presentation with my student a lot of things surprised me. First of all she is an eighth grader with a cognitive disability. Her code name for the report is Isabelle. I have watched her grow in certain areas and lack in others. The assessments were about personal strengths and recreation interests(indoor version). The personal strengths assessment let me see what Isabelle thought were her best strengths. This made me ask certain questions and the answers did not really surprise me when she told me. Isabelle is a student that is living in the present, she does not really bother herself with what is to come in her future. She has no clue as to what she wants to be when she grows up or is she wants to go to college. This project makes you look at how your students can or cannot be ready for transition yet even though it is just around the corner. When talking to Isabelles teacher Mrs. Stiegelmar, she feels very strongly that students learn and use self advocacy. This prepares the students to be more independent with their

adult lives. This sometimes be hard for some students, because their parents might have an different idea about advocacy. Mrs. Stiegelmar lets parents know that during eight grade students will start to learn about self advocacy, and how this can benefit them on future endeavors. She thought that the advocacy presentation was a good choice for Isabelle. This gave Mrs. Stiegelmar an idea of where Isabelle was for advocating for herself. The question I asked Isabelle first was do you know what a advocacy presentation was? She gave me a crazy look and her face was clueless for a few seconds. Then she asked me to explain what it meant. After I informed her of what it was she said "she does not have a clue how to do that". Isabelle was great with talking about the advocacy presentation. Although she did not know about advocacy she did pick out her strengths and weaknesses. We talked about how math and being polite can be hard for her most of the time. These are two things that she wants to work on and get better at. This was a great learning opportunity for both student and teachers.