Twenty-one 4th- and 5th-grade students with learning disabilities and emotional disabilities were assigned at random to a control condition or to an experimental condition in which they were taught, over a 9-week period, a five-step self-determination strategy for solving school- or home-related problems. Maintenance was assessed 3 weeks after the completion of the posttests. Results revealed that students in the experimental condition statistically outperformed students in the control condition in their abilities to learn a problem-solving strategy and to apply that strategy to scenarios. Experimental condition students also demonstrated their ability to generalize the use of that strategy to a classroom problem and retained their learning on a 3-week postintervention maintenance test. Results are discussed in terms of future research and implications for practice.
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