Paving Pathways for Success: The Role of Transition Models and Disability Services in Postsecondary Education for Students with Disabilities

Students have dreams and goals outside of school. School psychologists can play a vital role in helping students with disabilities reach their dreams, particularly when the dreams ask the question “What do I want to do after high school?” Often, the answer lies in postsecondary goals, which require transition planning while the student is still in school. Manuscript One (M1) explores how families, teachers and school psychologists can all play supportive and distinct roles in helping a student with disabilities reach their postsecondary goals. There have been several transition models proposed to help students with disabilities shift from PK-12 to postsecondary settings, however, there are gaps in application for the most important team members: student, family, teacher, and school psychologist. M1 proposes a new transition framework, Creating a Roadmap: Providing Opportunities for Optimal Living (CAR:POOL), that focuses specifically on the concrete steps a transition team needs to complete post-secondary goals. Manuscript Two (M2), subsequently, assumes that a student with disability has achieved their goal of entering postsecondary education. The next step would be to access Disability Services. M2 explores and summarizes the state of disability services across 18 colleges using a content analysis of disability service handbooks and websites. The study answers (a) how university disability services define disability (b) what common accommodations and ways to promote accessibility are available (c) what the impact if any disability cultural centers (DCCs) have on universities. Findings are reported and implications for school psychologists are discussed.