Transition Matter: Family Participation for Promoting Successful Transition for Young Children with Special Needs

The purpose of this research focused on targeted population who received formal evaluation in National Taiwan University Hospital Hsin-chu Branch as well as will be first-grader, and their families. The interns majored in Special Education have been recruited for partnership with participating families. This study also focused on coordination between education and medical professionals, and establishment of a two-sided partnership among trans-disciplinary professionals and family for promoting transition skills for young children with disabilities to be ready for the first-grade entry. Action study and family-centered approaches have been used for this project. Participating children included those both placed in regular classrooms and in self-contained classrooms. During the research process, the modification of intervention curriculum has been based on two-sided perspectives of focus interviews. At first stage, both learning readiness and school adjustment questionnaires have been developed for entering first graders both in regular classrooms and special classrooms. At second stage, these questionnaires have been used for evaluation, developing intervention goals, and monitoring children’s learning progress. The results showed that all participating children’s learning readiness goals have been improved, but both disability characteristics and learning environments should be taken into consideration. This study emphasized on family participation, and different perspectives have been revealed from investigating social validity after the implementation of the intervention. This study also focused on trans-disciplinary professionals’ partnership, and the implementing process found that it is necessary to include processionals’ perspectives in developing transition goals.