Self-determination and Disabled Students
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Self-determination is defined as the "acquisition of attitudes, abilities, and skills that lead students to define their own goals" and implement them (Ward, 1988, in Price, Wolensky & Mulligan, 2002, p. 110). Since the late 1980s, the U.S. government has sought to promote the cultivation of self-determination of students with disabilities. For many years, the focus of self-determination was primarily limited to helping students with disabilities transition from school to the real world (Wehmeyer, Field, Doren, Jones & Mason, 2004). However, with the passage of the Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the promotion of self-determination has also extended to include participation in the individualized education program (IEP) meetings, the determination of the curriculum and instructional approaches, as well as the acquisition of learning and living skills (Harrison, Arnold & Love, 1997; Palmer, Wehmeyer, Gipson, & Agran, 2004). In spite of the extensive support and promotion by the policymakers, self-determination skills and their instruction have not been incorporated into the school curricula and the school environment. Very often, they are not inserted into the IEPs. Although policymakers have recommended that students should be taught self-determination skills from an early age, they have mainly been taught at the high school level (Test et al., 2004). This phenomenon suggests the possibility that the promotion of self-determination of disabled peop
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r counterparts with low self-determination scores after graduating from high school. More specifically, eighty percent of the students in the high self-determination group worked for pay after graduating from high school, compared to only 43 percent of the students in the low self-determination group. The former group also earned significantly more income than the latter group. The students in the high self-determination group also expressed a greater interest in living on their own than the students in the low self-determination group.
Moreover, research studies conducted on this topic have illustrated that disabled students, regardless of their level of and types of disabilities, who have been taught self-determination skills, have benefited academically from the process. In their research study involving 22 middle and junior high school students with intellectual disabilities, Palmer et al. (2004) evaluated the effectiveness of a self-determination instructional model—the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction (SDLMI). Through the SDLMI, students were taught to apply a model that enabled them to determine the goal, formulate the plan and reflect on their learning process. By the end of the study, students with
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Approximate Word count = 1241
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)
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