The Road to
Personal Freedom:
Self-Determination
Discusses a curriculum for reversing self-defeating
tendencies in youth with disabilities by building skills
in areas such as communication,
self-understanding,
creative thinking, and problem solving
By Dale Carter Ludi
a n d Leslie M a r t i n
G
radually, our society has
taken steps toward fuller inclusion of people
with disabilities—in classrooms, in employment, and in social
life. In order to be able to take advantage of such opportunities for fuller
participation across settings, people
with disabilities must learn to trust
and respect themselves and learn how
to gain as much control over their own
lives as is individually possible. In
fact, the opportunity to play a central
role in determining one's fate—selfdetermination—may be the single
most exciting challenge on the horizon
for people with disabilities, their families, and service providers.
In this article, we introduce a selfdetermination curriculum that has
been piloted with students from different ethnic backgrounds with mild,
moderate, and severe disabilities. The
primary goals of this article are to
introduce the reader to (a) the project goals, (b) the definition of selfdetermination, (c) the validation research associated with the project,
(d) the self-determination curriculum,
and (e) the steps necessary to implement a successful self-determination
curriculum in the classroom.
164 INTERVENTION IN SCHOOL AND CLINIC
Project Goals
The self-determination project originated as a 3-year demonstration grant
issued from the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services
(OSERS), U.S. Department of Education. To meet the goals outlined in this
grant, the self-determination team engaged in the following activities: (a)
researching and identifying the skills
and characteristics necessary for a person with disabilities to become selfdetermined, (b) developing a curriculum to teach setf-determination skills
to teenagers, (c) field testing the curriculum in four high schools serving
low-income minority households, and
(d) developing and implementing a
parent training component of the
program.
ity to take the initiative to achieve
those goals. Acquiring the personal
characteristics which lead to SelfDetermination is a developmental process that begins early in childhood and
continues throughout adult life. (p. 2)
Wehmeyer (1994) has defined the
concept as
the attitudes and abilities necessary
to act as the primary causal agent in
one's life and to make choices and
decisions regarding one's quality of
life free from undue external influence or interference. Self-determined
individuals act autonomously and are
self-actualizing and self-regulating.
Causal agency implies that it is
the individual who makes or causes
things to happen in his/her life and
that a given action was purposeful or
performed to achieve an end. It is a
critical element contributing to an
individual's quality of life across
settings, environments, and opportunities. (p. 16)
Self-Determination
Researchers have offered several useful definitions of self-determination.
Ward (1988), for example, has defined
self-determination as follows:
Self-Determination refers both to the
attitudes which lead people to define
goals for themselves and to their abil-
These definitions are descriptive, yet
neither reflects the reality that selfdetermination means different things
to different people with differing dis-
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30 NUMBER 3 JANUARY 1995 (PP. 164-169)
abilities within different cultures. The
word ability appears in both definitions; our experience, however, reveals
that ability is not an integral factor. In
fact, cognitive ability may turn out to
be far less important a factor in becoming as self-determined as is individually
possible than having family, school,
and community support when one is
undertaking such endeavors.
Because the project described here
involved working with students from
different cultures (including Hispanic
and Native American), it is important to note that culture itself does not
alter the meaning of self-determination,
but it is likely to change some of the
characteristics developed and the manner in which that development takes
place.
Research en Identification
e i Skills
In order to identify the specific skills
needed to become a self-determined
person, four research questions were
developed.
1. "Are there terms in the literature
pertaining to self-determination
that occur frequently!" This question was developed to ascertain
whether researchers had identified
those skills that denoted a successful person.
2. "Do three separate focus groups
(business people, educators/service
providers, and Protection and Advocacy System Project Advisory
Board members) view the skills/
characteristics of self-determination
in the same way I" This question
was included as a social validity
measure.
3. "Would factors such as gender, role
in society, ethnicity, disabled or
nondisabled status alter perceptions
necessary for self-determination!"
This question was necessary because of the diversity of our society
and how self-determined persons
must function in such diversity.
4. "Would a statewide survey parallel
the findings from the focus group
aspect of the survey!" This question was developed to further validate initial findings pertaining to
skill identification.
The following sections discuss the
procedures used to answer each of the
identified research questions.
Terms of the Literature
(Questien 1)
A literature review provided a core
group of terms on self-determination.
The five traits found in over 70% of the
literature were assertiveness, creativity, pride, self-actualization, and selfadvocacy. Additional skill terms found
in 50% to 70% of the literature were
communication, empowerment, locus
of control, self-awareness, self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-respect. In
their own research, experts such as
Ward (1991) have drawn similar conclusions.
Focus Groups
(Question 2 )
Each of the focus groups, representing business people, educators/service
providers, and the project advisory
board, viewed skills needed for selfdetermination differently. Members of
the business group, asked to identify
what basic skills a person with disabilities needs to succeed in business in
the 1990s and to be self-determined,
focused on outcome-based skills, such
as accountability, communication,
commitment, and interpersonal skills.
By contrast, the educator/service provider group focused on skills that could
be taught or developed, such as selfconfidence, awareness of legal rights,
problem-solving strategies, and perseverance. Finally, the project advisory
board, which was a hand-picked group
that included individuals with disabilities, parents, etc., and was considered to be an expert focus group,
seemed to take a more holistic view of
self-determination, viewing desire,
courage, perseverance, tenacity, faith,
humor, and a willingness to change as
important skills.
Advisory board members rankordered for high- and low-functioning
students: (a) the skills identified in the
literature, (b) the skills identified by
the other two focus groups, and (c) the
skills they generated themselves. Rankordering was done separately for each
group, which produced different results
in each category. This ranking was
done by a Q-sort methodology, a precise ranking procedure, and the mean
value of the position assigned to each
value indicated the panel's composite
judgment as to relative importance.
Initial findings revealed that the advisory board members generally agreed
about which self-determination traits
are important for youth; however,
there was some variation in their perceptions when members were compared according to particular characteristics (see the next section).
Differing Perceptions
{Question 3}
The Q-sort methodology was applied
to the advisory board rankings for
self and for high-functioning and lowfunctioning youth with disabilities to
determine if factors such as gender,
ethnicity, work role, and disabled versus nondisabled status of the board
members affected their perceptions. All
areas had statistically significant findings,- thus, it appeared that these variables did have an impact on how selfdetermination traits were perceived.
Statewide Survey
{Question 4 )
We conducted a statewide survey of
teachers, business persons, parents and
other relatives of youth with disabilities, advocates, school administrators,
Department of Vocational Rehabilitation counselors, therapists, support
agency representatives, educational
assistants, private practice and school
counselors, students, and university
professors. This survey produced a
total of 146 respondents. Findings revealed that (a) 91% of the respondents
perceived that the core traits we identified were important or very important;
(b) 93% of the respondents perceived
that there were specific self-determination traits necessary to get and keep
a job; (c) 100% of the respondents
thought that students with disabilities
need to be able to identify community
resources and use them; (d) 100% of
the respondents thought that students
with disabilities should know their
civil rights; (e) 99% of the respondents
perceived the importance of family participation in developing self-determination skills in youth with disabilities;
(f) 99% believed that youth with disabilities should learn self-determination skills by the time they leave high
school; and (g) 99% of the respondents
believed that students with disabilities
should advocate for themselves.
Using these findings, the self-determination team organized the curriculum into eight skills that incorporated
the characteristics identified in the
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literature and the focus groups. The following description outlines these eight
skills.
The Curriculum—
"Self-Determination:
The Road to Personal
Freedom"
Once the eight skills were identified, a curriculum to instruct students
with disabilities was developed. The
goals of the curriculum focused on
(a) developing self-determination skillbuilding activities and strategies that
were consistent with students' current social, academic, and emotional
development; (b) introducing these
activities and strategies into several
existing high school programs for fieldtesting purposes,- (c) providing role
models for behaviors consistent with
self-determination goals and cultural
values; and (d) training service providers, parents, and peers to understand the importance of self-determination as it relates to the developing
teenager.
The curriculum is organized into
eight units preceded by an introduction
and followed by a dictionary of terms,
an abridged annotated bibliography,
and several additional teaching resources. This extensive information is
provided because teachers have varying levels of knowledge concerning the
Unit I: Introduction to Self-Determination: The Road to Personal
Freedom: Unit provides examples of individual and group self-determination,
introduces the student to Goal Mountain, and the characteristics shown by a selfdetermined person.
Unit II: Expanding Roles: Practice Makes Perfect: Unit explores the
different roles students play, have played, and may play in life and accents the fact
that getting involved in leisure activities gives them opportunities to improve their
self-determination skills.
Unit III: Communication: A Look At Individual Styles: Students begin
to identify different communication and behavioral styles. Adjusting individual
communication styles to reflect strength and respect is a major goal.
Unit IV: Facing Facts: Disabilities and Accommodations: Unit focuses
on identifying individual strengths, needs, and the accommodations needed to be
successful.
Unit V: Fostering Interdependence: Family, Friends, and Support:
Students take a look at the positive nature of support fromfriends,family, teachers,
and organizations and how to build relationships to effect support.
Rights and Responsibilities: Students become
Unit VI: TheBigR's: Righto
acquainted with their rights and the exchange of responsibilities that needs to occur.
Unit VII Future Planning: Getting From Here to There: Work centers
on an introduction to making long- and short- term goals, including taking three goals
to the IEP meeting.
Unit VIII Conclusion: Celebration of Self: This unit provides an
opportunity for students to demonstrate what they've learned to do. A parting
emphasis is placed on the relationship between persistence and increasing one's
odds of success.
Figure 1 • Unit overview.
166
instruction of self-determination. See
Figure 1 for a unit overview.
In addition, the curriculum is structured to take into consideration that
each individual's teaching style and
knowledge base may affect how the
curriculum is used and, therefore, its
success. For example, one individual's
success as a high school work-study
teacher stems from the fact that he
views his students (no matter what
their level of functioning) as young
adults who are soon to enter the community to live, work, and participate
in recreational activities (M. Brown,
personal communication, 1993). His
teaching style often combines the roles
of counselor and traditional teacher.
He encourages his students to make
decisions even if those decisions differ
from what he would do and encourages each individual to take calculated risks. The fact that he envisions
his students as functioning citizens
brings an element of reality into the
classroom. Practice enhances each student's ability to make appropriate decisions that ultimately improve the
odds of reaching goals related to selfdetermination.
Design Overview and
Component Intent
Throughout the curriculum, a collection of sayings introduces each unit.
Sayings and proverbs are verbal traditions found in all cultures, and they
can be used to help students remember certain concepts or as resources for
the positive self-talk we need to generate within ourselves from time to time.
The dichos (Spanish for proverbs),
determinations, and wisdoms (often
Native American proverbs) spotlighted
at the beginning of each unit are intended to give teachers cultural insights, teaching tools, and resources
to generate discussions. See Figure 2
for examples.
A rebus is a drawing that substitutes for a written word or phrase.
Teachers use rebus symbols as an accommodation to help students who
have difficulty memorizing terms or
information to leam terminology, communicate knowledge, write stories,
and so forth. At the beginning of each
unit, teachers are introduced to a rebus
that represents a key vocabulary word
and its related concept. These symbols,
borrowed from the Standard Rebus
Glossary (Clark, Davies, & Woodcock,
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1974), can be used in several ways. For
example, a teacher currently using our
curriculum with students of Native
American ancestry uses the symbols as
a motivational tool to help her Navajo
middle school students tackle terms
and remember what they mean (P. Trujillo, personal communication, 1993).
Her students also have a great deal of
fun inventing symbols to represent
other words and concepts critical to
understanding self-determination.
Whether her success with the use of
rebus is due in part to student cultural
respect for symbols is purely speculative but is possible.
Dichos, determinations, wisdoms,
vocabulary, and rebus symbols can be
valuable tools for the teachers who
choose to use them. Our experience
suggests, however, that teachers tend
to use only the strategies that they find
exciting and/or familiar. This preference may correlate with individual
learning styles. The curriculum is set
up, therefore, so that teachers can pick
from multiple teaching strategy options. We strongly believe, however,
that the use of all the strategies provided in this curriculum, as opposed to
selecting just a few, provides optimal
practice and skill reinforcement for the
student, which can make the difference between what a student is exposed to and what a student learns
to do.
Most of the content taught in this
self-determination curriculum is not
concrete. For some students with learning disabilities, this aspect of the curriculum can present problems. With
this in mind, we developed Goal Mountain. Pyramid structures (goal mountains) are designed to facilitate goalsetting activities that appear in each
unit. They serve three distinct functions. Each gives a visual preview of
how unit goals are constructed, illustrates what steps must be taken to
reach the unit goal, and constitutes a
new way of planning outcomes. Goal
Mountain is a cognitive strategy—a
thinking tool students can construct
and use in multiple situations throughout life. Teachers can also use Goal
Mountain in other content areas.
Teacher Talk and Concept Exploration. Teachers are at varying stages of
personal understanding and development in the area of self-determination.
For this reason, the curriculum includes sections entitled Teacher Talk
UNIT I: INTRODUCTION TO SELF-DETERMINATION
Dicho: Perro Que No Sale, No Encuentra Hueso.
| Proverb: The World Will Not Be Handed To You On A Silver Platter.
i
Determination: If it's to be, it's up to me!!
1 Vocabulary:
1 communication
1 creative thinking
1 Goal Mountain
goal setting
proverb
pride
self
problem solving self-advocacy
Self-determination 1
self-understanding 1
skills
UNIT CONCEPT: Self-determination refers to the skids and attitudes* that
allow individuals and groups to set and then reach their
•Attitudes are reflected in the proverbs, determinations, and the wisdoms presented in each
unit.
SD
SD is the abbreviation and visual that will be used throughout the
curriculum to represent the word and concept Self-determination.
Visuals are provided as accommodations for those students who
find memorizing terms difficult.
Unit Goal: I will develop a
better understanding of Selfdetermination.
I will continue to expand my understanding of SD through the
use of Goal Mountain.
I will work to leam more about Self-determination by studying the skills that
make SD possible.
I will work to understand SD by studying examples of individual and group Selfdetermination.
Figure 2«
Example of first-page format for Unit I.
and Concept Exploration. Teacher
Talk provides the instructor with a
quick introduction to the information
needed to teach each unit, whereas
Concept Exploration shows the instructor how to introduce the information to the class.
Through field-testing experiences,
the self-determination team found that
some teachers lacked sufficient knowledge about self-determination to follow
the development and scope of the curriculum, leaving these teachers feeling
uncomfortable, and resulting in curricular omissions and exclusions—short
cutting curriculum logic and objectives. Teacher Talk and Concept Exploration provide teachers with the
knowledge they need in order to use
the curriculum effectively.
Taking It Further. In Taking It Further, teachers find a running list of
activities designed to enhance the assimilation of unit concepts. It is up to
the teacher to decide what is suitable
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for use with his or her students and in
what manner. Activities are arranged
in a pattern from least difficult to most
difficult. Activities are intended to give
teachers a point from which to start
and should be considered subject to expansion by the innovative educator.
Final Assessment Options. Teachers ask their students to show them
what they've learned once they have
concluded work on certain concepts.
Final Assessment Options (found at
the end of each unit) offer teachers a
look at different ways to obtain that
feedback based on the levels of thinking each student is capable of using.
Final Assessment Options are based
on Bloom's taxonomy (Bloom, 1956)
and his understanding of the different
levels of human thinking. Assessment
options are given at each level of thinking and should be viewed as a glimpse
of how a teacher might proceed while
trying to evaluate students. From these
assessments, teachers have to determine what is appropriate for each
of their students and move ahead
accordingly.
Results. The project design called for
students to be given pre- and posttests
that focused on self-assessment and
knowledge gained from the curriculum. Although the results indicated
growth, the team thought that the data
did not accurately reflect the extent of
acquisition of self-determination skills.
Case studies and teacher feedback provided more information on how students used their newly developing
skills to take charge of their lives. For
example, a non-reader secured his
driver's license by having the written
test read to him. The fact that this service was available was introduced in
one of our classes. This enabled the
student to be self-determined in terms
of the independence driving can offer.
The team also noted that because
self-determination is a process, students would use these skills at different intervals in their lives. The impact
of the self-determination skill teaching
might not be observed until the student has undertaken post-high-school
activities.
Our everyday language has inaccurate and degrading labels for people
168 INTERVENTION IN SCHOOL AND CLINIC
Cooperative Learning
One of the realities that surfaced
during the field-testing stage was the
inability of students to work toward a
common goal. A second was the staggering diversity of skills represented
within each classroom. Cooperative
learning strategies are incorporated
into the curriculum to offset these
occurrences (which we believe to be
consistent with teacher experiences
throughout the country), to begin the
process of demonstrating to our youth
the advantages of interdependence and
to initiate skill building in all eight
self-determination skill areas.
In the Hispanic and Native American cultures, interdependence is considered a good quality to develop. In the
United States in general, however, independence is often valued as a more
attractive goal. This curriculum capitalizes on the Hispanic and Native
American concept that interdependence is valuable and that it can actually enhance an individual's attempt to
become self-determined. This theme is
carried out through an emphasis on
learning how to develop support systems in the classroom, family, and
community.
Need for Advocates
Teacher/Trainer Tips
A Word About Language
with disabilities. Although sensitivity
has increased, in our society we can
still find labels in use that contribute
to negative attitudes and rejection of
people with disabilities.
A disability is a functional limitation that interferes with a person's ability to walk, talk, hear, learn, and so
forth. Everyone, regardless of how severe a disability, has abilities, contributions to make, and gifts to share.
Each individual is a person first, and
the words we use should convey this.
The stereotyping of people through language is one barrier we can eliminate
relatively easily. As we teach students
to be self-determined, we want them
to accept their disabilities, and, at the
same time, to see themselves as people who have abilities and worth. It is
important that the language we use
with them talks about their disabilities
in constructive ways.
Few parents participating in the
project understood the full implications of their children's disabilities,
disability rights, the educational system, or educational issues. Few stu-
dents had the necessary communication, problem-solving, goal-setting, or
self-advocacy skills that would allow
them to effectively participate in their
Individualized Education Program meetings, express their needs, and so forth.
Educating and assigning advocates to
parents and students might provide the
connective links that seem to be missing between home and school.
Educating Parents
Parents need to be afforded the opportunity to learn about how to foster
self-determination skills in their children with disabilities as early in the
childrearing process as possible. If we
expect to witness self-determination in
children with disabilities, we need to
realize that what happens at home is
as important as what happens in the
classroom.
The parent component of our selfdetermination curriculum is called
Home Delivery. Home Delivery grew
out of several attempts to organize
educational meetings and get togethers.
Although we found that the parents of
students with developmental disabilities were more likely to attend our
meetings, no group of parents attended
consistently. We developed Home
Delivery to serve a twofold purpose:
(a) to give teachers additional information about self-determination topics,
and (b) to keep parents abreast of selfdetermination concepts being studied
at school and how they could contribute to reinforcing them at home. Home
Delivery does this through the use of
pamphlets.
A Look a t What Works
Observation, coupled with teacher
feedback, indicates that certain teacher
skills or support mechanisms are essential in the development of self-determination skills in the individual with
disabilities. These skills and behaviors
are not addressed in the curriculum. In
an attempt to acquaint teachers with
items that might make a difference in
their teaching, we have provided the accompanying sidebar, which lists teacher support mechanisms that coincide
with student-centered goals in the
curriculum.
Summary
Toffler (1974) once stated, "It is during the first few years of school that
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S u p p o r t M e c h a n i s m s f o r Successfully L e a r n i n g
S e l f - D e t e r m i n a t i o n Skills
For learning to take place, teachers must:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Encourage, elicit, and validate self-determined behavior
Cue, prod, and facilitate learning
Visualize the student functioning as a full citizen
Define self-determination so the student has a reason to learn
self-determination skills
Help students identify strengths and needs and the accommodations
needed to access them
Teach students about different personality types and why the students
act as they do, understanding the same as it applies to others
Provide opportunities to work on improving the way students communicate
so they learn to do so with strength and respect
Teach students to access an advocate to work with them and their parents
Provide a definition for "success" that includes accomplishing set goals
Provide experiences outside the classroom so self-determination skills
can be practiced
Work on building relationships where they don't exist—accessing
organizations to secure the needed support
Teach students to know their rights and responsibilities and to live up
to them
Motivate students to be persistent in the wake of failure and other
disappointments
Provide a balance of left and right brain activities
Conduct fair and appropriate assessment techniques as defined by the
students' abilities to provide responses and display skills
Promote independence within the classroom through the use of
cooperative learning techniques so that students can see that working
with and through others is one key to success
Promote activities that encourage students to interact with and accept
support from successful people with disabilities
images of the child's future (and the
means to achieve them) are generated
and become interlocked with his or her
perspective" (p. 25). With this thought
in mind, teacher preparation institutions, as well as public schools, need
to adjust their programs to mirror the
fact that students now have more opportunities to move ahead to future
roles formerly denied to—or at least
not encouraged for—people with disabilities. Students need to know what
their new options include and that
they have the right to guidance in preparing to take control of any or all of
those options within much the same
timeframe as other students.
It is the conclusion of this selfdetermination team that teaching
self-determination skills in the teen
years is not as effective as introducing
References
Bloom, B. S. (1956). Taxonomy of educational
objectives handbook: Cognitive domain. New
York: McKay.
Clark, R., Davies, C , & Woodcock, R. (1974). Standard rebus glossary. Circle Pines, MN: American
Guidance Service.
Toffler, A. (1974). Learning for tomorrow. The road
of the future in education. New York: Vintage
Books.
Ward, M. (1988). The many facets of self-determination. Transition Summary, 5, p. 2. (Washington, DC: National Center for Children and Youth
with Handicaps)
Wehmeyer, M. (1994, April). Self-determination as
an educational outcome. LASH Newsletter, p. 16.
these skills and concepts to parents
and their children with disabilities
earlier in the educational process.
However, even if early instruction
were to happen today, it would have
little impact on students already in the
system. Use of this curriculum, as well
as others designed to develop similar
skills in youth with disabilities from
diverse cultures, is, therefore, a crucial
step in the right direction.
S
D a l e C a r t e r L u d i , MA, owns and operates
an educational service in New Mexico and is currently writing a self-determination curriculum designed for preschoolers with disabilities. Leslie
M a r t i n , MEd, is currently working as an advocate for people with developmental disabilities at
a nonprofit legal rights organization. Address: Dale
Carter Ludi, 10517 Schenley Park Dr. NE, Albuquerque, NM 87123.
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