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Due to the advocacy of families during the 20th century, children and youth with disabilities gained access to a free, appropriate education. Although people with disabilities have made significant strides in the past quarter century, in the United States and across the world, people with significant disabilities continue to experience disproportionate levels of unemployment, have few options other than to live with their families, and experience a diminished quality of life. To address this, the educational system has focused on supports and services to ensure that young people with disabilities transition from school to adulthood more successfully. Within these efforts, the promotion of self‐determination for secondary students with disabilities has become best practice, and there exist evidence‐based methods, materials, and strategies to achieve this outcome. This article discusses the importance of self‐determination for youth with disabilities to achieve successful lives and the important role that families play in that process.

Although some progress has been made, the belief that students with severe cognitive and multiple disabilities will not or cannot become self-determined remains a barrier for many such students. This article revisits topics that were identified in Wehmeyer (1998) as contributing to this problem, with a particular focus on definitional issues pertaining to self-determination and control. In light of this discussion, a modified definition of self-determination is proposed and the importance for moving in this direction is discussed.

There appears to be a belief held by many people, both in the field of disability services and among people in the general public, that self-determination is a topic not relevant for people with significant disabilities. This article reviews how the term has been defined and conceptualized, examines misperceptions of the term that may have contributed to the exclusion of people with significant disabilities, and seeks to find common ground to move forward to promote self-determination for people with significant disabilities.

Abstract  The authors describe what preparations they undertook before introducing self‐determination theory and its corresponding teaching model to the Japanese special education system for students with intellectual disabilities. The Japanese special education services are designed to nurture students to be individuals who are independent, know and exhibit preferences and interests, set and achieve goals, and possess a sense of achievement and self‐awareness. In this respect, the values embedded in the practices of the prevalent Japanese special education teaching model appear to substantially overlap with those of self‐determination. At the same time, Japanese education is designed to value corporate independence, corporate preferences and interests, setting and achieving corporate goals, and corporate sense of achievement and self‐awareness. The authors conclude that by focusing on these similarities when introducing the concepts and strategies underlying self‐determination to Japanese professionals it will help them operationalize what they have done, what they have tried to do, and what they are going to do. Further, by substituting the term "self" determination for "corporate" determination, the functional model of self‐determination and the corresponding teaching model can be applied to theorize or articulate the practices of Japanese special education that have been implemented on the basis of collectivism values.

Background  Many people assume that the presence of an intellectual disability precludes a person from becoming self‐determined. Recent research, however, has suggested that the environments in which people live, learn, work or play may play a more important role in promoting self‐determination then do personal characteristics of the person, including level of intelligence.Methods  This study examined the self‐determination and autonomous functioning of 301 adults with intellectual disability or a developmental disability without concomitant intellectual impairments (e.g. persons with cerebral palsy, epilepsy and spina bifida) as a function of personal characteristics of individuals.Results  Intellectual capacity was not a significant contributor to either self‐determination or autonomous functioning for this group. Opportunities to make choices, however, contributed significantly and positively to greater self‐determination and autonomy. Intelligence scores did, however, predict whether the person worked or lived in more or less restrictive settings, though for the latter, both self‐determination and autonomous functioning also contributed significantly.Conclusions  These findings are discussed with regard to the role of personal characteristics, particularly intelligence level, in promoting self‐determination and more positive adult outcomes.

AbstractThis article describes the state of inclusion and inclusive practices with students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) in the United States. It reviews the legislative history of the right to a free, appropriate public education for students with disabilities and the requirement in U.S. law for special education services to be provided in the least restrictive environment (LRE). Despite a focus on the LRE and appropriate supplementary aids and services to promote success in regular education environments for students with I/DD, students with I/DD are still educated largely in segregated classrooms and settings in the United States. However, a large and growing body of research suggests the positive benefits of inclusive education providing a compelling need for ongoing change to make inclusive placements the default for students with I/DD, consistent with the law. Research clearly suggests that inclusive placements benefit students with I/DD, and emerging research highlights that engagement and access to the general education curriculum is higher in inclusive vs. segregated settings. There is an ongoing need for the implementation of the policy establishing the right to education in the LRE for students with ID, and recent court cases suggesting the importance of an "appropriately ambitious" education program provide new direction for progress in inclusive practices.

This article used theory, historical records, and empirical research to make a case that inclusive education, in which students experience significant proportions of their day in the age-appropriate contexts and curriculum of general education, is a research-based practice with students who have extensive support needs. We begin by noting that there are regressive trends occurring in educational placements in our country and that these are causing alarm. Next, we establish guidelines for defining a useful, research-based practice. These guidelines include considering what education should be achieving for all students as a standard and using a view of scientific causality that acknowledges complexity. We then show how constructs from ecological theory and group processes theory, which provide accounts for human growth and learning, relate to location of educational services (i.e., context) and curriculum (i.e., content) decisions. Throughout this discussion, we show educating students using an inclusive education approach is supported by these constructs, whereas other widely used special education are not. We then review both historical and empirical data from institutions and schools and show that these data provide empirical support for the primary theoretical position of this article—that context, together with curriculum content, matter crucially when educating students with extensive support needs. We concluded that there is theoretical and empirical support for using general education contexts and curriculum content and for not using other contexts and curriculum content both in educating students with extensive support needs and in conducting related research.