- Knowing and believing in yourself
- Knowing what you want your future to be like and how to make plans to achieve this future
- Knowing the support you need to take control of your life
Core components
- Choice making
- Decision making
- Problem solving
- Goal setting
- Self-advocacy
- Leadership
- Self-reinforcement
- Self-awareness
Strategies for teaching self-determination
- Create goals that focus on self-determination (goal setting, making choices, saying “no”, self-advocating, etc.)
- Use person-centered planning meetings, such as MAP or PATH
- Include student in IEP process
- Designate a time to teach self-determination skills (part of a social skills curriculum)
- Integrate newly acquired skills throughout the school day
- Embed instruction into vocational and community-based instruction
- Use a self-determination curriculum or other resource
- I’m Determined www.imdetermined.org
- National Gateway to Self Determination http://www.ngsd.org/everyone/what-self-determination
- PACER http://www.pacer.org/tatra/planning/self.asp
- WVU Center for Excellence in Disabilities http://cedwvu.org/advocacy/what-is-self-determination.php
- A student’s guide to the IEP http://www.nichcy.org/products/pages/default.aspx?productid=7018
- Self-determination course http://www.fldoe.org/ESE/esecourse/7963140.pdf
Books
- The Integrated Self-Advocacy ISA Curriculum by Valerie Paradiz
- Self-Determination by Michael Wehmeyer and Sharon Field
- The PATH & MAPS Handbook: Person-Centered Ways to Build Community by John O’Brien, Jack Pearpoint & Linda Kahn
- PATH: Planning Alternative Tomorrows with Hope. A Workbook for Planning Possible Positive Futures by John O’Brien, Jack Pearpoint, and Marsha Forest
