Assisting students with identifying their strengths, preferences, interests, and needs (SPIN) defines and refines the entire transition planning process.

Strengths, Preferences, Interests, Needs.

Strengths

Helping students identify their strengths is an important component in the student’s transition plan and IEP. Transition planning provides the opportunity to identify strengths that we may have overlooked in the special education and school environments.

Sometimes we overlook strengths because they may not be the typical behaviors or skills that we value in the school environment but may be skills that are important in post-school environments. For instance, a student who is doodling on their paper may create an interruption in their work in English class but may be an asset in an environment where “out of the box thinking” and creative representation of ideas are encouraged.

Depending upon the student’s individual skills, strengths might be reading at the 4^th grade level or using a switch for communication. For a student who demonstrates skills in algebraic calculations and higher-level problem-solving skills, strengths might be the ability to follow multi-step directions or demonstrate above-average verbal and written communication skills.

Transition assessments should identify strengths the student demonstrates in these areas:

Education/training
Employment
Independent living

Video: Strengths (0:20)

Students Todd, Michael, and Cody talk about their strengths that relate to postsecondary education, employment, and independent living.

Preferences

Preferences include the work, education, training, and social environments where students are most productive. Many students have never thought about what their preferences are in a work or postsecondary education or training environment.

Working on projects or assignments is an example that can help identify preferences. Does the student prefer to work in a group or work alone? Often this has additional nuances related to the difficulty of a project. Some students may prefer working on a complicated and difficult project with others or they may want to have one person available to answer questions as they work individually on the tasks.

While interests may change with experiences, preferences often remain steady over the years. Thinking about what motivates and excites the student may help the entire team expand their understanding of both preferences and interests.

Preferences can be applied to postsecondary education, training, and employment environments. Examples of preferences include:

Sitting at a desk or active or on the go
Inside or outside work
Working with hands or working with words and numbers
Working in a quiet, slow-paced environment or working in a noisy quick-paced environment
Working in a job where you need to talk and interact with others or a job where you don’t need to talk with others

Video: Preferences (0:06)

Student Cody describes his preferences in a work environment.

Interests

When talking to students about their interests, it’s important to help them determine which are interests in future vocations (for their work), and which are interests in their avocational areas (leisure time interests). It may be easier for students to identify areas of avocational interests than interests that align with employment goals. As you begin talking with students about their interests, listen carefully so that you can help them discover where their interests lie in areas of employment and how avocational interests might help explore the world of work and to help identify postsecondary education or training programs.

Identifying interests is based upon experiences. If a student has very limited experiences in the community or exposure to employment, their identification of interest areas will be unreliable or minimal. If a student expresses an interest in an occupation that seems “unrealistic” from the teacher or parent point of view, it is a great starting point for exploration. Asking a student, “What is it you like about that job?” is a good question to start the conversation for further investigation. Asking it again after exploration, “What is it you found out about that job that you did or didn’t like?” adds further information to the transition assessments.

Family, culture, ethnicity and language also play an important role in helping students to identify their areas of interest. For some students an interest survey that provides two choices, asking which is most preferable, may be a better assessment than open-ended questions. For some students a conversation would elicit better information.

While the purpose of gathering areas of interest for a student is to identify further experiences and transition services, it is important to take into consideration the experiences the student has in their life outside of school. Remember to be sensitive to the many complexities that students may be experiencing in their lives and avoid making assumptions.

Video: Interests (0:16)

Student Angela shares interests that affect her future career opportunities.

Needs

When determining the students’ needs, one should consider the supports the student needs in all areas of their life. Although school focuses on academics and social emotional needs, it’s important to consider the next environment where the student will be engaged.

Sometimes the supports students’ need in school are different than the supports they need in work environments or postsecondary education/training programs. This is a good opportunity to assess students’ levels of self-determination and the advocacy skills they may need in post-school settings.

What supports do students need to:

Reach their postsecondary goals for a college/training program?
Reach their employment goals?
Access the community and/or live independently, as appropriate?

Video: Needs (0:19)

Students Michael, Todd, and Cody discuss needs that relate to their postsecondary education and employment success.

Next: Assessment Best Practices