Easter Seals Project ACTION
Transportation Advocacy Education
Good afternoon, and welcome to this presentation of Transportation and Self-Advocacy Education to
Support Transition for Students with Disabilities to Post-School Settings, a webinar being presented by
Easter Seals Project ACTION.
All participants will be in a listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity to ask questions during today's
presentation. At that time, an operator will give you instructions on how to ask your questions. If you
should need assistance during the conference, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on
your touchtone phone. This conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to
Krystian Boreyko.
Thanks, Stephanie. Welcome, everyone. Easter Seals Project ACTION is very excited to present today's
session. In this webinar, we will be learning about strategies to integrate transportation education in
transition planning for students with disabilities. The presenters are also going to discuss how to
implement these strategies through the use of Easter Seals Project ACTION tools. Our presenters today
will be Judy Shanley, Director of Student Engagement and Mobility Management for Easter Seals Project
ACTION; and Valerie Paradiz, Director of the Autistic Global Initiative at the Autism Research Institute.
We will close today with a question-and-answer period. I would like to remind everyone that this session
is being recorded and transcribed and will be available in text, Braille, and audio CD formats following the
conference, upon request. You can visit the Easter Seals Project ACTION website at
www.projectaction.org to obtain a PDF or text format copy. You can also contact us at
webinars@easterseals.com to request a Braille or audio CD copy.
Before we get started, I just want to remind everyone that Easter Seals Project ACTION is a technical
assistance center that strives to provide accurate information on the ADA, or the Americans with
Disabilities Act. What we provide is technical assistance and not legal advice. In other words, it does not
carry the force of the law. We aim to provide solutions using the ADA and occasionally other federal
regulations as a baseline.
I am now going to turn it over to Judy.
Great, thank you, Krystian, and welcome, everybody. We are thrilled that you can join us this afternoon
on 12-12-12, a really auspicious day. So, what we are going to talk about today is I'll give you a little
overview of Easter Seals Project ACTION. We will talk about how to integrate some of this content that
Valerie and I will be sharing with you in educational reform and hopefully providing you with particular
strategies that you all can use, whether you are in a school district or working with a school district. We
are excited to have had a relationship and have a relationship with Valerie Paradiz and working with her
Self-Advocacy curriculum and materials and tools and you'll be hearing about some of the materials that
she's developed for us that you could easily integrate in a transportation education program. And then, as
Krystian said, we will have opportunities for questions and dialogue and I always share with people that
when I talk and do workshops and do presentations, we learn as much from you all and your experiences
and the strategies that you use in the field, so we look forward to learning about how the content that
Valerie and I share resonates with you.
I hope you are familiar with Easter Seals Project ACTION. I suspect you are since you are part of this call
and hopefully have had an opportunity to go through our website. Our mission is to focus on accessible
transportation for a variety of populations. This particular content we are sharing will focus on students
that are leaving high school, students' transition, but you're probably aware that we develop materials for
senior citizens. Easter Seals also operates the national center on senior transportation, we work on
veterans topics and all persons with disabilities. So, we are – as Krystian also said, we support the
Americans with Disabilities Act and in the content that I'll be sharing with you, really, it's aligned with the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. We are 23 years old, believe it or not. That's how long Easter
Seals Project ACTION has been around, and we are funded by the Federal Transit Administration. All of
our work is aligned with our host organization, our parent organization, Easter Seals, which you're
probably aware is focusing on services for our children and youth and adults with disabilities. With that,
our work really focuses on four areas – we do a lot of training events, some of you may have attended our
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in-person, our face-to-face intro to travel training courses. We do a lot of other kinds of technical
assistance. We have got the toll-free number that people use to call up. We have got products and
materials, so please take advantage of all that we have to offer. Because we are federally funded, all of
our materials are free and available, and we encourage people to use our materials and customize them
to their own needs. We are involved in applied research, working with universities to answer a lot of
questions that we all have around accessible transportation, and in this field, particularly students and
transportation education. And then we are also involved in outreach where we have an array of partners
and Valerie at AGI is an example of one of those partners.
Our work and the work that we are talking to you today about is really based upon helping students with
spontaneous choice. The next quote comes from some of our work and it reads – I feel like I am
independent. I don't need my mom and dad to take me places. Now I can ride the bus to get to my job
and to the movies with my friends. Well, what you are going to be hearing today are some tools that
educators and human service professionals and families can implement to help students be able to make
choices regarding transportation.
On the next slide – those of you who know me, I am very graphically oriented and I like series and
paradigms to kind of guide our work. This is a slide that demonstrates the trajectory of transportation
education. What is supposes is the foundation is transportation education, so students are having access
to content about transportation options early in their schooling, early and often throughout their schooling,
and the tenet is that it is self-directed, that students have to guide the kinds of information that they
acquire about transportation, and ultimately have decisions and choice in transportation options when
they leave school. There are also, in the next step of that, there is a piece associated with assessment,
and so in schools, we are really fortunate that we've got occupational therapists, physical therapists,
educators, families, community-based organizations, perhaps, that are offering information about
students' skills and functionality as it relates to transportation, so any path toward accessible choice has
to come with an assessment piece.
There is also the piece where there is skill development based upon students' needs. Students may need
more formalized travel training, a very structured kind of program, such as that our intro to travel training
is kind of a foundation for that. Students may not need so intense services. Then, the options students
have, we want students to have an array of options, including fixed-route systems, paratransit, or maybe
a hybrid, or there may be other transportation options, personal vehicles, that students could have, but
the main tenet is that there's choice. And always throughout this process is there has to be ongoing
assessment and we want transportation to be able to support students going to college, going to
employment and having careers and living independently and being engaged in a community. So, that's
kind of the framework that we are working under when we talk about transportation education. And, when
I speak with educators, one of the questions that I always ask is what do you know about the accessible
transportation in your community? So, what I want you to do now is think about the kinds of transportation
options that are available. And if you are an educator working in a school, or you are a human service
professional working in a community who works with students, do you know what services are available?
Do you know how to access those services? Do you know eligibility criteria? So, you have a poll, so if you
want to type –
Sure, just in the way of instruction, if you want to indicate that you know about the first option, you can hit
control one. If you want to indicate that you know about the second option, you can hit control two, and so
forth, and this is an interactive poll, so your response is visible to all participants.
And, it is kind of – you know, asking questions like this, with us asking you, but also, you working with a
team of people that you work with in your community is a way to do a resource mapping. Find out where
are the gaps in knowledge and what kind of information do colleagues need in order to be engaged in the
transportation decision-making process. So, are people –
We've got two participants indicating that they know about the accessible transportation services – now
we have two people indicating that they know about transportation infrastructure. Would anyone else like
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to offer a response? We have someone who just indicated that they know about costs, hours, logistics,
and a few more, now, that know about the second option about transportation infrastructure.
Good, that's the foundation of all of this is you, as a professional working with students, even if you are a
family member, getting to know the kinds of services that are available in your community is the first step.
On the next slide, again, with my paradigms and my models and I refer this as my dream model. In my
dreams, in order to have transportation options available to students as they transition out of high school,
at a secondary setting, it takes a team. And, part of that team are the Educators and the Transition
Professionals that work with students. Also, getting Safe Routes to Schools involved. Safe Routes to
Schools, for those of you who do not know, if a national program also funded by the Department of
Transportation, and it looks at the pathways and the walkways and the bicycle lane around school
buildings. So, having those folks at the table as you are thinking about your transportation education plan
is critical.
Also, having pupil transportation and campus transportation if you are looking to post-school, postsecondary education settings. I often speak with educators about do they even know who their pupil
transportation professionals are in their school district and many don't know, and I work closely with the
National Association for Pupil Transportation, and those folks are so eager to work with educators and
other human services professionals. They want to be involved in IEP, Individualized Education Program
plan meetings. They want to be talking with transitional coordinators in schools systems about the kinds
of transportation support that students need, so I encourage you, if you are a school system, get those
folks involved. And also, public transportation, I also do a lot of speaking with the American Public
Transportation Association, get to speak with lots of transit professionals, and they too want to work with
schools. Sometimes it's – people have told me that it is difficult, they don't know how to make the foray
into school, so all of this paradigm is driven by students and families. You can see on the left-hand side of
this graphic, students and families are the driver of this whole system, so the self-advocacy principles that
Valerie is going to speak to you about is really relevant to building a team, an interdisciplinary team like
this.
On the next slide, when I talk about integrating transportation education into reform, I think it makes
perfect sense. Educators are overwhelmed with initiatives and new programs in schools, so leveraging
existing reforms makes sense because there is already an infrastructure that exists. Also, I know in work
in the northeast that in some school districts, they have gotten money to work on reforms such as
common core standards so doesn’t it make sense to tap into those professional development activities,
where there all resources. We want to talk about transportation, why not leverage those professional
development opportunities around things like common core discussion.
Then, the third thing, which referenced is by building transportation content into existing curriculum, into
existing instruction and pedagogy, it lessens the perception of – oh, another thing. So, that's why it makes
sense to build on things that are already going on in skill.
On the next slide, I am not going to go through each of these, but these are some of the big reforms, or
the hot issues, that are going on in school these days. And, as you are thinking about transportation, I
would encourage you to learn about each of these reforms and how what you're doing to build
transportation systems for students can leverage these reforms. Things like college and career readiness
and common core and thinking now where it is not just about academics, but we need to think about
having students be critical thinkers and develop communication skills, all of those skills for the 21st
Century, transportation content certainly fits in with all of those. Also, I have worked with a lot of school
districts who have reached out to the big employers within their community to build transportation
systems, so that final bullet on this slide, in terms of understanding labor market needs could be a really
important driver to implementing transportation programs in schools.
On the next slide is another framework – another way, visual, to think about this work. In education, we
have a lot of multi-tiered systems. There's something called Response to Intervention, where you have
gradients of instruction for students based upon students' need. Well, we are suggesting using a tiered
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approach to transportation education content. So, at that bottom tier, which would be a district-wide
approach, all students get content around transportation education, so you might provide professional
development to educators. Have forums where transit professionals come into the school in informal or
formal ways. We may have summits. We have worked with Chicago Public Schools, and we had a
student-family summit for students and families as a way to educate families and students about
transportation options, but also as a way to educate educators and other professionals in schools. So, at
that bottom level, at that foundational level, it is less intense. It is not as customized to particular student
needs. It may be less costly. And, as you go up the triangle, or the tier, it becomes more intense. It
becomes more focused on the particular needs of students and more costly. But, it is just a way of
thinking about a way to roll out transportation content.
On the next slide, we have another poll just to kind of understand where you all are in terms of your
thinking about transportation education. Krystian?
Sure, this is the same type of poll. You can indicate whether you are involved in the first, second, third, or
fourth option by saying control one, control two, control three, or control four. And again, we'll probably
share responses to the (inaudible).
For instance, in that first bullet, the question is – do you integrate transportation content into curriculum? If
you're involved in math instruction, do you ever use concepts associated with transportation and distance,
maybe using a route map to help students learn subtraction or addition. Or, in that second bullet – can
you think of work that may be going on around college and career readiness and is transportation support
routinely part of the discussion about college and career readiness?
All right, we've got two people indicating option one, that they integrate transportation content into the
curriculum. And, two people for the third option, so offering tiered transportation education services. And
two, as well, for the fourth option of working with people or campus transportation professionals.
Yay, I love to hear that. All throughout our thinking and the models that I've shared with you about
transportation education, the driver is student choice, student decision making, self-determination, and
the tools that you'll hear Valerie talk about really are integrated into the whole framework that we've been
talking about. So, I'm very excited to introduce Valerie Paradiz with you to talk about her self-advocacy
materials. Val?
Thanks, so much, Judy and Krystian. It is a pleasure to be with all of you today. I just love working with
Easter Seals Project ACTION and having the opportunity to share the tools that we've developed together
to support students and individuals with disabilities in achieving more self-advocacy abilities specific to
transportation.
So, just to give you a little bit of background on me, I'm the Director of the Autistic Global Initiative, which
is a program of the Autism Research Institute. We are located in San Diego, California. And, my program,
basically, consists of a committee of adults with autism-spectrum disorders who live all over the United
States and work in the disability field. And basically, we self-direct and staff the program that I direct, and
our real mission is to build capacity in adult services, not just specific to autism but to also partner with
other organizations, such as Easter Seals and the Project ACTION community, to expand and hopefully
add more to what can be available out there across all disability populations.
Today, I am going to speak a bit about the Integrated Self-Advocacy Curriculum, which is a curriculum
that I developed to support educators and therapists and direct-support providers in supporting individuals
with disabilities in increasing and building upon their self-advocacy skills. What you'll be seeing here are
some tools that I developed with Easter Seals, as I mentioned before, that are specific to self-advocacy in
the moment of utilizing transportation or for planning for transportation, so just to start out with some
basics. If you step back for a moment – quite often, those of us who work in education or in the disability
skills, when we hear the words self-advocacy, or self-advocate, we often think that's the individual with
the disability who is learning to or has already learned skills in advocating for him or herself, but the reality
is that all of us, disabled or not, are self-advocates. And, we actually advocate for ourselves throughout
the day, every day, in a variety of ways. Now, for some people, this kind of happens without much thought
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or even a need to kind of check in and make a plan. Could be something as simple as you're at the office
and the window is open and there's a small breeze coming in and you are a little cold, and you tell a
coworker, is it okay if I shut that window, I'm feeling a little cold. That's actually a request for an
accommodation, right in your workplace or anywhere, and as human beings, we are constantly
monitoring our needs and regulating our needs and self-regulating throughout the day, whether we are
disabled or not.
So, just to kind of walk you through, any time there's a moment of advocacy, self-advocacy, taking place,
we usually go through three steps. The first step, of course, is just being aware that there's an issue – oh,
I am feeling cold. There's a breeze coming in the room. I am aware that that is what is affecting my
discomfort, the window that is open. Then, we move on to make some sort of Advocacy Plan. That plan
might involve some kind of disclosure. It may involve a script of some kind that may be practiced and
rehearsed in advance for the person with the disability. Then, finally, we implement the plan. I'm going to
walk you through these three steps with a bit of a case example and one that is specific to transportation.
So, here we are, step one; and step one, of course, is the self-awareness point in the advocacy process.
What do I need? Am I aware of what I need? Here, we have an individual named Jon. He has sensory
challenges, and particularly, tactile sensitivity. He has autism and is also dually diagnosed with sensory
integration disorder, which quite a few people on the autism spectrum experience, not to mention, other
disability populations. Jon's feeling is – I like people, but being touched feels like a bad sunburn. So, he
wants to take the subway to work, but whenever the subway is very crowded, it makes him feel anxious
because he's very concerned that he might get bumped by another passenger, and it really does become
a kind of deal breaker for Jon. He doesn't want to get on the subway for fear that he'll experience that
really difficult sensory dysregulation that happens when he is touched by another person.
So, what does he need? He needs to make an Advocacy Plan, and this is the second step in the process
that we looked at in that earlier slide. In order to feel less anxious, he realizes that he needs to make a
script that he can use whenever the subway is crowded. This is something that he can say to another
person or people on the subway that will help him get his specific sensory needs met in that particular
environment. So, he makes a script, and you can see his script there – would you mind letting me take
that seat? If I get bumped, I feel lots of pain. It is a medical problem. Thank you. Now, scripts can come in
a lot of shapes and sizes. They don't have to be a script that's text or verbally spoken. They could be
something that is a set of images to represent a form of communication or a request for an
accommodation of some kind. So, when I think about scripts throughout my short presentation here,
today, please do keep in mind that with the Integrated Self-Advocacy Curriculum, we always try very
much to include both universal design for teaching in our schools, but also to look at individualizing to
specific communication needs and differences.
So, Jon has made his plan, and he has made his script, but another thing that often comes up when we
develop Advocacy Plans is that we might need to make a disclosure of some kind. And, sometimes it is
important that as educators or people working in the other fields, supporting individuals with disabilities,
that we provide them with the support to understand that they can make a variety of choices around
disclosure. In this instance, for example, Jon doesn't feel that he needs to share with someone on the
train that he has autism in order to make a good Advocacy Plan that works for him. So, he decides to
make a partial disclosure by saying that he has a medical condition. In this way, he is helping other
people understand that his needs are legitimate, but he doesn't have to completely fully disclose, which
could, in this particular situation, perhaps make him vulnerable. That's information that not everyone
needs to know.
Navigating disclosure is as much a part of developing self-advocacy skills and tools as creating scripts
makes requests, or using other types of tools to support one's needs in a variety of settings. So, just to
kind of review the types of disclosure choices that might come up if you or people who you work with are
supporting individuals in planning transportation-related self-advocacy plans, you may go through these
steps in sort of thinking through what will be necessary. Now, in Jon's case, he decided if he didn't
disclose at all and asked someone if he could take their seat, they would think he was kind of weird or
strange and might find it rude or have some other kind of reaction. If he gives a full disclosure, he knows
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that, in some instances, people often don't understand what autism actually means, or don’t realize that
people with autism have sensory challenges because these challenges are often invisible to other people.
So, what's he's gone for is, as I said before, the partial disclosure. And in this instance, he simply explains
the sensory difference as a medical condition; and usually, in such instances, people are very readily able
to react and respond to that. So, in a sense, when you are supporting someone in developing selfadvocacy skills, you are also teaching them to be a bit of an ambassador to the world. Because, quite
often, when we do express our requests for accommodation, we sometimes do need to educate others as
to why that might be necessary or important for us.
Finally, Jon implements his plan. He practiced his script ahead of time because in those very stressy,
crowded subway situations, he wasn't able to just sort of speak off the cuff and make a request, so he
practices his script. Then, he took the subway to work, and on a crowded day in the subway, he used his
script and was able to get the right kind of seat to keep himself from touching or bumping into other
people on the subway.
So simply, step back then again, and look at that first slide that I showed you. I'd love to open the
presentation up for a little interactive sharing, and can you think of a time, maybe recently, or just
something that stands out in your memory, that you advocated for yourself. If so, are you able to break it
down into those three steps of self-advocacy of self-awareness; making a plan and possibly disclosing;
and then, finally, implementing it, and what were the results? And, if you have something that's specific to
transportation, all the better, but we don't have to limit it to that for the purposes of today's presentation,
unless you do. So, what we'd like you to do is type anything you might like to share about your particular
self-advocacy experience in the chat window that's provided. Maybe Krystian might be able to provide a
little more information on how to do that.
Sure thing, Valerie. It's pretty easy, in the chat box that is below the participant window, which contains all
the names your fellow participants on the webinar, you can just go ahead in the empty space, just go
ahead and click in there, you'll see your cursor pop up and you can type. Hit enter to send the message to
the room and we'll all be able to see it.
Thanks, Krystian.
Sure.
If anyone wants to take a moment to share their, rather than typing out, just to share their experience over
the phone, we do have a minute, here, where we can get some audio input. So, Stephanie, if could give
directions for calling in?
Please press star then the number one on your telephone keypad, star then the number one.
Thanks, Stephanie.
Please feel free to either tell us your experience over the chat or call in. We have one that has come in,
here, I can read it out loud. One participant saying – I could tell I was stressed about the noise level at my
office. I asked coworkers to go to another room to discuss topics they were involved in.
That’s a fantastic Advocacy Plan, and that's one that come up quite often just with my experience in the
autism community. For children in schools or people on the autism spectrum in work environments, if
there's more than one or two or more people speaking, and especially if there's another conversation
going on, like outside the hallway of the classroom or in the same room in the workplace, that can
become very, very difficult. If you think about it, too, this is something that happens for many of us,
whether we have sensory integration differences or not, and we are constantly, as I mentioned before,
sort of regulating ourselves and our environments throughout the day to our own advocacy strategy.
We have another one that has just come in over our chat, so I read it out loud – needed to ask driver to
call out stops due to my visual impairment. Decided to ask for calling out stop and to explain that it was
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unfamiliar to me. Sometimes, I disclose regarding visual impairment if driver knows me and knows I am
familiar with the area, it depends.
Wow, that sounds great. You sound like somebody who has implemented your plan often, too. And, that's
something I love to add is once you kind of have a plan in place and you have been implementing it and
utilizing it in different settings, you can start tweaking it just like you did, depending on whether the driver
knows you or if it's a new neighborhood that you're traveling through or area. Then, also, it's very
interesting and really nice to hear how you tailor and make situation-by-situation decisions about
disclosure, whether that's necessary or not.
Does anyone have any other stories they'd like to share?
Well, great, I think, then, I'll go ahead and move on. If anything else comes in, it's fine, we can certainly
step back and share that with the group. Those are really nice examples of Advocacy Plans in action and
how beneficial they can be, especially if you have one sort of made in advance so that you don't find
yourself in a setting or individuals you support don't find themselves in a situation where they kind of just
don't know what to do.
Just to review a bit about the Americans with Disabilities Act and the whole purpose of the tools that I codeveloped with Easter Seals Project ACTION, it is really – the set of tools that we've developed are really
meant to support individuals in asserting their rights while using public transportation. Sometimes it's not
easy for a transit worker, or other traveling passengers co-traveling, to know that an individual has a
disability, and therefore, really increasing our skills and the nuances of our advocacy skills is something
that is very critical. For those of you on the call who are in a position to begin to integrate such tools in
programs that you direct or staff or offer direct support in, this can be a really wonderful set of tools to
begin doing that.
Just to kind of look at sensory integration disorder for a moment, the sensory systems – there are actually
seven sensory systems. Many people think quite often that there are the usual five, and there are actually
two additional internal senses, in addition to sight, taste, auditory, et cetera, and those are proprioceptive
and vestibular senses. Those senses are really what provide us with information about where our bodies
are located in space or how swiftly they are moving through space, as well as whether we are upside
down or right-side up, or walking up or down an incline. So, as you probably might expect, if you think
about these two internal senses, some mobility differences may arise because of them, and also, motorplanning issues. So, some of the sensory and environmental advocacy that we encourage students to
learn might involve these additional sense systems in addition to the visual or the olfactory, the sense of
smell and the tactile, et cetera.
Sensory integration disorder is basically a way to describe those people who – and I am among them, I
have sensory integration disorder, who experience, perhaps, over or under sensitivity of incoming
information through the sense system. Sometimes a kind of sensory scrambling happens or a
synesthesia of sorts and that often leads to either sensory overload or just shutdown. Really, the overload
and the shutdown is what we often call, in schools or other programs, we often call those, behaviors. If
somebody becomes very overloaded and overstimulated, you might start to see expressions of
dysregulation of various kinds. For our friend, Jon, on the subway, he knew if he even got on the subway
and was touched by another passenger, he'd probably move into, what you can see here on this slide, is
that zone of behavioral disorganization, where he really just can't kind of hold it together anymore. And,
dealing with the whole ISA transportation tools theories is about helping individuals with disabilities have
the tools they need to self-advocate in order to keep their own behavior organization in that middle zone
between the two horizontal lines, with sensory events happening around them all day long. And, the
sensory events are at the bottom of this graph, those little pyramid-shaped things, which could be – the
first one might be bumping into somebody, being touched when you have a tactile sensitivity, and the big
one might be the sound of the screeching subway moving down the tracks. I'm thinking of New York City
at the moment, where taking subways is particularly difficult for me. As you can see, what we attempt to
do with these advocacy tools is to support individuals in really having more direct participation in their own
ability to regulate and have greater integration and inclusion in the community, including transportation.
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I'm just going to pop through a few more slides to show you a peek at some of the tools that are available
through Easter Seals Project ACTION that we co-developed together. This is a chart that is a tool to
support individuals in understanding the various sensory systems and how they function and to begin to
identify what are things in the environment that are affecting me. And, that's where the self-awareness
piece, the step one of an advocacy moment, comes in. Sometimes we actually need to help an individual,
or support an individual, in understanding what the sensory environment means to them and how it's
affecting them.
One of the tools that we developed is called the ISA Sensory Scan for Transportation, and what this scan
does is it breaks any environment down into all the different sensory systems. An individual can either do
a sensory scan for transportation alone on their own, or with support by an educator or other support
person. What we do is move through the auditory scan, the visual scan, et cetera, identifying levels of
comfort of discomfort and what the source is. After completing that scan, the individual then has data to
utilize to create a Transportation Advocacy Plan. This tool actually walks the individual through the
process of developing an Advocacy Plan, and there are certain questions to figure out along the way. Do I
need a script? If I need a script, what kind of script is it? Is it something that I have already entered into
my communication device? Is it a series of images that I show to a transit worker, or is something that I'm
going to role play and rehearse and speak out loud when the time comes to implement? And, all kinds of
other questions are sorted out, too, as the plan is developed, including the question of disclosure.
Then, after implementation of the plan, there is a tool for rating how it went and whether the plan might
need adjusting. For example, for the individual who spoke about advocating for visual needs on the bus,
you were able to tailor your Advocacy Plan, your Transportation Advocacy Plan, to match and become
more nuanced depending on the particular transportation setting. So again, having feedback and rating
your own plan, and then going back and making revisions is one way to support a person with a disability.
And, going through the steps in a very methodical way, and also, keeping it in mind and knowing that
improvements can be made over time. We also have an advocacy script tool for creating scripts that are
suited to the setting where there is a specific advocacy need.
So, just to begin to wrap up a little bit, I want to share with you one other tool that we have created, which
is called the Social Scan. Very much like the Sensory Scan, the Social Scan is meant to be a tool for
looking at transportation settings or environments and analyzing and becoming self-aware socially what
one's needs or tendencies might be. Then, after identifying those and collecting that data, we move
through the same process of creating an Advocacy Plan, implementing it, and then rating how it went and
possibly refining and revising.
In this slide, you see some of the aspects of transportation that involves social experience, social
interaction, and the tools that we developed are really designed to support educators and therapists and
direct-support providers in supporting individuals in scanning social environments and utilizing that
information to address some of the settings and concerns that you see listed on this slide. We'll just take
a quick look at the tools, and this is what the Social Scan looks like. It is very methodical in how it kind of
breaks down the social scene into different aspects, from who is here, who are the people, what is the
density of bodies in space, is this something that is very formally organized or is it a very loose kind of
setting and not very organized. And in doing so, this supports an individual in becoming more aware of
what the social setting is, and thereby, becoming aware of one's specific needs in that setting. Then, as I
said before, we move on to creating an Advocacy Plan that may involve a script and will probably require
consideration of disclosure and whether to disclose or implement a partial disclosure.
With that, I've walked you through all the tools, and I'm going to go ahead and pass it back to Judy.
Terrific, thank you, Valerie, so much. We worked with Valerie to develop these tools knowing that IDEA,
the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, requires student-focused, student-directed transition
planning. So, thinking about how these tools can be integrated in transition planning and how students
and families and educators and others can use them cooperatively to identify transportation goals for
students that are really, truly based upon his or her needs is really the foundation for this work. We have
– the last slide provides you with Project ACTION resources that we hope that you'll join. We've got an
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accessible transportation for students online community where we welcome discussion around your use
of these tools. The tools, by the way, are posted on our Youth Initiative webpages, which the URL is
indicated on this resource. We hope that you'll share your experiences and any information about your
use of the tools and how they have been integrated in transition planning and developing IEP goals for
students. And, really ensuring that the transportation goals that students have are aligned with their social
and sensory preferences, and students are empowered to be decision makers in the process.
With that, I will turn it over to Krystian.
Thanks, Judy. And, thank you to Judy and Val for those great presentations. That was really interesting.
Now, we have a few minutes this afternoon for questions-and-answers, so Stephanie could you please
give directions for asking questions over the phone? And, as always, you are also welcome to type your
questions into the chat box.
If you would like to ask a question, please press star then the number one on your telephone keypad.
Again, that is star then the number one to ask your question. There are no audio questions at this time.
Again, please feel free, if you want to call in you are welcome to. We also have a question, here, in the
chat. I'll read it out – is there a checklist for a transportation scan?
The tools that Valerie shared with you through this webinar are available, so there are – it's not really a
checklist. It is more like a qualitative summary of students' preferences, and those are available for
download on our website.
Now, I keep thinking about how the tone of transition education in schools and thinking about post-school
outcomes for students. And really, there's a heavy, heavy focus on self-determination and student
choosing the kind of outcomes, whether it be to go to college, to go to get a job, to how they live socially
in the community, so these tools are really aligned with the national focus on choice, on student choice.
We hope that they easily integrate into other transition goals and planning that might be taking place in
schools.
We have a comment, here, in the chat room, and I'll read it out loud – this will be really helpful for me as a
travel trainer. Thank you for the great resources.
Well, thank you for attending our session today. It's great to get that feedback and to know that these
resources are going to help you in your professional endeavors.
Val and I have our contact information on the final slide. So, if questions come up after this forum, please
don't hesitate to contact any one of us. We are excited to roll out these materials and look forward to any
feedback that you provide. We have used these, by the way, in a pilot service learning program that we
are doing with school districts around the country. So, we are collecting data on their impacts and their
outcomes in a kind of quasi-experimental way, so we will have information to share about the service
learning programs, too. The tools really fit in with other materials that we've developed around student
and transit partnerships, so please use them and give us your feedback.
Stephanie, have we had any questions come in over the phone?
No questions at this time.
We have one more from the chat room that just came in – as advocates, how do we ensure students are
placed in appropriate stimulating workplaces without disclosing to the employer?
Disclosure in the workplace is a huge issue. I think there's – I don't know that we're such the good
authority on that, but there are some really nice resources through the Department of Labor. They fund
some national projects. There's one in particular, it's called Project EARN, and they've got some really
good guidance about disclosure. And, identifying exactly what Val said is, is how much to disclose and
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considering the kind of work situation and work environment, and then making decisions about what or to
whom or how to disclose within that context. Valerie, do you have anything to add to that question?
I can encourage you to visit the website of the Autism Research Institute and subscribe to our
newsletters. The next issue of the AGI newsletter, which is the program that I direct, which is devoted to
adults with autism and concerns around adults, will be devoted to employment. And, there will be a
variety of contributors to that issue. That won't be coming out until February, but it should be a very nice
resource in that way. Quite often, even if the disability population or individual you are supporting isn't on
the autism spectrum, some of the discussions and issues are relevant for everyone.
In the question, there's reference to an appropriate and stimulating workplace, so I think the assessment
data, the information that we learn about the students and what their particular interests and preferences
are, including the social and sensory preferences that Val mentioned, will help to ensure that it is an
appropriate workplace.
Yes, and you can also take a look at my Integrated Self-Advocacy Curriculum, which was really used as a
basis to create these transportation-related tools with Easter Seals Project ACTION. But, in that
curriculum, there are tools and strategies for supporting individuals in a variety of settings, including in the
workplace or in the job interview. And, the publisher of that is the Autism Asperger Publishing Company.
We just have a minute or so left, so I wanted to check and see if any questions have come in over the
phone; but otherwise, we will transition towards wrapping up the session. Stephanie, do we have any
questions?
No additional questions at this time.
All right, and we just have a request here in the chat to post the URL for the tools, so I am going back to
that slide with the different resources. If there is anything you specifically want, you can just send us an
email at webinars@easterseals.com with any questions you might have that you didn't get a chance to
ask or any resources you specifically need, and we will be happy to help you out.
That was a terrific presentation, so I wanted to thank Judy and Val for that. On behalf of Easter Seals
Project ACTION, I also want to thank our friends at Better World and Blackboard Collaborate for holding
these teleconferences for us. They are great partners. I also want to let everyone know that if you are
interested in obtaining a text or a PDF transcript of this session, you can make that request to
webinars@easterseals.com. We also post those to the event page at www.projectaction.org and those go
up about 30 days following the event. If you'd like an audio CD of the session or to get the transcript in
Braille format, please send us an email at webinars@easterseals.com and provide your postal address.
We'll be happy to send that to you as well. There is a recording of the webinar, and that's going to be
made available shortly after the session. Again, you can make that request at
webinars@easterseals.com, and we'll be happy to send you the link to that.
Thank you so much for your participation. There is also a link up here in the webinar room to an event
evaluation. That's also going to be going out via email, following the event, to all registered participants,
and if you can just take about five minutes or so to fill it out, we really do appreciate your feedback. It is
very valuable to us as we shape our future distance-learning events. Thank you, again, for your
participation. Please keep an eye on www.projectaction.org and your email for future Project ACTION
events.
Most importantly, I want to thank you for your commitment to bringing together the disability community
and the transportation industry to improve accessible transportation in your community. Have a great day.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.
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