Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students typically have fewer opportunities to acquire self-determination skills. Yet these skills are critical to successfully achieving desired adult outcomes and identifying the accommodations needed to assume adult roles. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (2004) requires that transition-age students with disabilities attend their annual individualized education program (IEP) meetings to support development of these skills. This chapter presents two programs for teaching DHH students strategies for becoming actively engaged in their own IEP meetings. Their clearly delineated instructional sequences provide foundational skills for acquiring and implementing various components of self-determination. Using both programs together further expand students' opportunities to develop the self-determination skills they will need to be active and successful adults, including understanding and addressing the impacts of their disability on their future activities.
TopIntroduction
Self-determination skills are extremely important to achieving post-school and adult independence for deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students: in getting appropriate accommodations, adapting the environments (such as for visual and auditory access), and in meeting their learning, communication, and access needs. Post-school settings across education and training, work, recreation and leisure, and community activities will expect these young adults to self-disclose and describe their disabilities, preferred accommodations, environmental arrangements, and to effectively self-advocate for their needs.
Unfortunately, very few studies have examined self-determination interventions with DHH students (Luckner & Sebald, 2013; Luft, 2016). Mitchell et al. (2009) used a student-led Individualized Education Program (IEP) process to teach self-determination and leadership skills that included a small number of DHH students among 21 schools. Comments indicated that students successfully assumed new leadership roles, but no quantitative outcomes were reported. Johnson et al. (2013) reported anecdotal testimony from administrators, educators, students, and parents which noted that all benefited from allowing students increased autonomy during IEP meetings but again, presented no data.
The two programs described in this chapter were designed to teach students with a range of disabilities. They address the breadth of skills they need to be successful self-advocates, to include leading their own IEP meetings and creating a Summary of Performance (SOP) which is required in their final year of high school (IDEA, 2004). This chapter describes how these two programs can easily accommodate the special needs of DHH students and a range of additional disabilities. First, the chapter reviews the related legislation, the research supporting self-determination outcomes and included constructs. Then, it describes the two program steps with an initial section on accommodations and modifications for DHH students with disabilities. This is followed by a description of how each program contributes to students’ acquiring the various self-determination skills and constructs and then a summary.