Abstract
The focus on self-determination across the life course in the disability field is long-standing. One of the most commonly utilized self-determination interventions is the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction (SDLMI). This article describes SDLMI: Community, an adaptation of SDLMI for community-based delivery to advance inclusive outcomes for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. In addition to describing SDLMI: Community, we highlight the implementation catalysts and barriers of SDLMI: Community that participants with intellectual and developmental disabilities, their supporters (e.g., direct support professionals, family members), and trained SDLMI facilitators shared during anonymized, individual exit interviews completed by external program evaluators. We use this information on implementation catalysts and barriers to provide guidance for ongoing implementation of this research-based practice for practitioners.
Keywords
“The SDLMI process and its implementation does not emphasize the attainment of goals, rather the focus is placed on learning a process to identify a vision for the future, to name goals, to build and test action plans, and to adjust goals and action plans as needed.”
Promoting self-determination is important across the life course; however, the majority of literature has focused on implementing and researching self-determination interventions with adolescents with disabilities as they prepare for the transition to adulthood (Burke et al., 2020). While this work has demonstrable benefits for students with disabilities during secondary transition (Mazzotti et al., 2021), too many people, particularly those with intellectual and developmental disabilities, continue to experience a “transition cliff” as they move out of school-based services into adulthood. Discussion of this cliff often focuses on the challenges of moving from entitlement-based special education supports and services to eligibility-based adult programs and the large number of students who receive special education services, but not adult services (Roux et al., 2015, 2017). The cliff also encompasses the lack of structured supports and opportunities in adulthood across life domains (e.g., employment, community living and participation, postsecondary education). This includes a lack of access to ongoing education and training for self-determination that supports self-direction over one’s life, goals, and supports as adult roles and responsibilities emerge and change.
The focus on self-determination across the life course in the disability field is long-standing (Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, 1989; Ward, 1988). Self-determination is defined as “a dispositional characteristic manifested as acting as the causal agent in one’s life” (Shogren et al., 2015, p. 258). An array of skills and abilities (i.e., choice-making, decision-making, problem-solving, goal setting and goal attainment, planning self-advocacy, self-management, self-awareness, and self-knowledge) that contribute to the development of self-determination have been identified. Interventions and approaches to supporting the development of these skills and abilities have emerged. One of the most utilized self-determination interventions is the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction (SDLMI; Shogren et al., 2018; Wehmeyer et al., 2000) as it targets the range of skills and abilities associated with self-determination. There are multiple research reviews and outcome studies documenting how the SDLMI can support growth in self-determination and goal attainment, as well as other in-school and post-school outcomes for students with and without disabilities (Hagiwara et al., 2017; Matusevich et al., 2025). This has led to the SDLMI being identified as an evidence-based practice in transition (National Technical Assistance Center on Transition: The Collaborative, 2022).
The SDLMI has also been adapted for other contexts across the life course. For example, researchers adapted the SDLMI for elementary school students to support the development of self-determination earlier in a child’s life course (Palmer & Wehmeyer, 2003; Shogren et al., 2022). There is also a growing body of work examining the SDLMI and its application in adult supports and services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in inclusive communities (Dean, Hagiwara, Jones, et al., 2022). Much of the research in adult supports and services centers on an adaptation of the SDLMI focused on promoting employment outcomes, the Self-Determined Career Design Model (SDCDM) (Shogren et al., 2020). Studies show the feasibility of using the SDCDM during employment supports to enable adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities to set and go after career goals, including goals advancing competitive integrated employment (Dean, Burke, & Shogren, 2022; Dean et al., 2019; Dean, Hagiwara, Shogren, et al., 2022). Researchers have also documented impacts of the SDCDM on self-determination abilities when delivered in adult services (Shogren et al., 2016).
Researchers and practitioners have also emphasized the critical importance of promoting change in the systems of supports to advance self-determination, including changing attitudes and expectations of supporters (e.g., direct support professionals, families, case managers) as well as policies and implementation strategies (e.g., removal of barriers to accessing training on self-determination, reimbursement for self-determination training and supports) (Shogren et al., 2016, 2017). Since 2019, we have been engaged in a line of work focused on adapting the SDLMI for community-based delivery for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (Dean, Hagiwara, Jones, et al., 2022). This article describes the SDLMI: Community approach to advance outcomes for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. We highlight implementation catalysts and barriers shared by participants with intellectual and developmental disabilities, their supporters (i.e., direct support professional, family member), and trained SDLMI facilitators during individual exit interviews conducted by an external program evaluator. These diverse perspectives on implementation provide guidance for ongoing implementation efforts by practitioners.
Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction
The SDLMI was designed to be a flexible framework with three core components (Questions, Objectives, Supports) implemented across contexts to support the development of key abilities related to self-determination and goal-oriented actions (Shogren & Raley, 2023). The three core components of the SDLMI are delivered across contexts and integrated into three phases (Phase 1: What is My Goal?; Phase Two: What is My Plan?; Phase 3: What have I Learned?; see Figure 1). Each of the three phases presents a problem to be solved, and trained SDLMI facilitators support and guide SDLMI participants to learn strategies to solve these problems while going after personally valued goals.
SDLMI Three-Phase Model
In each phase of the SDLMI, there are four SDLMI Questions that participants learn and make their own (12 questions total). The 12 SDLMI Questions are constructed to direct people through a problem-solving sequence based on the self-regulated problem-solving literature. By answering each SDLMI Question, participants work to identify a solution to the overall problem posed in each phase of the SDLMI, leading to the problem-solving sequence in the next phase. Each SDLMI Question has aligned Facilitator Objectives that the facilitator seeks to meet during each session as well as Educational Supports to promote key skills associated with each SDLMI Question. Figure 2 provides an overview of the aligned SDLMI Questions, Facilitator Objectives, and Educational Supports for Phase 1.
SDLMI Phase 1: SDLMI Questions, Facilitator Objectives, and Educational Supports
SDLMI: Community
The SDLMI: Community implementation materials leverage the core components of the SDLMI, with specific activities, examples, and tools relevant to meet the needs of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, support community group-delivery, and foster communication with supporters (e.g., family members, paid support staff) about SDLMI goals (Dean, Hagiwara, Jones, et al., 2022). SDLMI: Community sessions are organized around each of the 12 SDLMI Questions and each session includes instruction on skills needed to answer the questions and application activities (e.g., worksheets, examples of how other people with intellectual and developmental disabilities have learned to answer the question, videos, and online activities). The development of the SDLMI: Community implementation materials involved iterative modifications, feedback, and testing of materials, including feedback from adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The customized materials and examples developed to be used during group sessions reflect adult roles and responsibilities and key adult participation domains (e.g., employment, ongoing education, community living, civic engagement, recreation and leisure). See Figure 3 for a sample activity worksheet from Phase 1 focused on making change to reach a goal; this shows the tools that practitioners can use when delivering the SDLMI: Community to support adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. We continue to focus on developing materials to enable co-facilitation by adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities to empower those with lived expertise to support SDLMI: Community delivery and foster inclusive practices.
SDLMI: Community Goal Notebooks
SDLMI: Community Implementation
In 2019, the authors began a partnership with support from a State Developmental Disabilities Services Agency to implement the SDLMI: Community. The goal was to create a delivery structure that could (a) enable adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities to come together to learn about self-determination, (b) educate supporters about self-determination, and (c) create a funding structure that would enable sustainability of the SDLMI: Community. We developed an application to provide family training services under the Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) waiver program. Family training includes instruction in skills and knowledge pertaining to the support and assistance of members and is intended to allow families to become more proficient in meeting the needs of eligible members. Once approved and certified by the State Developmental Disabilities Services Agency as eligible, we contracted with the State Health Care Authority to utilize HCBS reimbursable services. Group sessions were reimbursed at a set payment rate per participant that allowed us to hire staff and build a small team of facilitators to implement the SDLMI: Community.
As described in Dean, Hagiwara, Jones et al. (2022), our pilot work demonstrated the feasibility of the SDLMI: Community approach and led to ongoing refinements. Since 2019, we delivered the SDLMI: Community program through twice a week sessions over an 8-month period to 41 adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Sessions were not only conducted primarily in-person, but also included virtual delivery during the COVID-19 public health emergency. In the sections that follow, we describe our overall approach to SDLMI: Community delivery supplemented by the perspectives shared in anonymous, individual exit interviews conducted with seven program participants with intellectual and developmental disabilities, five SDLMI facilitators who delivered the program, and two supporters (one family member and one direct support staff member) who supported participants in their day-to-day lives.
SDLMI: Community Approach
In planning for the implementation of SDLMI: Community, we realized that adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities often have very limited opportunities to engage in group learning and are rarely asked to identify their interests, preferences, and goals. Thus, we designed the first 12 sessions using the Finding Me (Ober, 2018) guidebook to provide a structured process to build participants’ self-awareness and exploration of interests, strengths, and needs. Finding Me sessions cover a range of personal topics (e.g., Where I Live; People I Know and Care About; My Strengths, Interests, and Hobbies; My Dream for My Life).
The 20 SDLMI sessions began immediately after the 12 Finding Me sessions. The SDLMI sessions start with four Preliminary Conversation sessions in which the facilitators introduce the concept of self-determination and how the SDLMI process works. This is followed by 12 sessions targeting one of the SDLMI Questions, followed by four concluding sessions to review progress, celebrate skills learned, and plan for the future. Supporters are invited to attend the final SDLMI: Community session where participants share the goals they set and celebrate action taken toward their goals with their supporters and fellow participants.
Implementation manuals lay out a predictable structure for each section. While a group format is used, consistent with group implementation in education settings of the SDLMI (Raley et al., 2018), the focus is still on each individual participation providing their own response to each of the 12 SDLMI questions. Group members support each other in reflecting on activities and responses, but ultimately, each person records their own response to the SDLMI Questions, and works toward their own individualized goal during SDLMI: Community sessions.
Each of the 32 (12 Finding Me; 20 SDLMI) sessions begin with a brief check-in during which facilitators encourage participants to talk about their weeks to get to know the participants and to encourage participants to share and connect with one another. Some groups implement a brief mindful breathing exercise and opening mantra and/or review the group rules and boundaries created and agreed upon by participants (e.g., respect fellow group members and facilitators; don’t interrupt or talk over one another; use kind words and body language; respect physical space and distance). Each SDLMI session includes a review of terminology aligned with the Phase of the SDLMI in which the participants are engaged (e.g., short-term and long-term goals, goal attainment, problem-solving), followed by a small group discussion where the facilitator works to achieve each of the Facilitator Objectives. Finally, each participant individually answers the SDLMI Question for the day, recording their responses in personalized Goal Notebooks and briefly reviewing activities they could engage in prior to the next session. The lessons and small group discussions are structured to engage group members in conversation. For example, when defining long-term goals, the facilitators provide examples of their own long-term goals and ask group members to share their goals with one another.
SDLMI: Community is designed to be a repeated, cyclical process. At the end of each cycle, facilitators support participants to evaluate their progress toward the goal identified in Phase 1 and planned to achieve in Phase 2. Participants determine if they achieved their goal and need to set a new goal, revise their goal, or keep the same goal but develop a new action plan. The focus is on celebrating progress, regardless of goal attainment, as learning about and exploring new goals and new actions plans is a critical part of ongoing use of the SDLMI and building self-determination. Implementers using the SDLMI: Community can reflect on the types of goals and progress toward goals that participants make, to inform ongoing implementation supports. Participants can and often do choose to continue through additional cycles of SDLMI: Community. In groups where all participants and facilitators have completed an initial cycle of SDLMI: Community, the 12 Finding Me sessions can be shortened or eliminated as participants often have established relationships and self-awareness necessary to foster the SDLMI process. For groups of returning participants, additional cycles focus on the 20 SDLMI sessions. Participants work through the three SDLMI phases repeatedly, creating more opportunities to build and practice self-determined actions and revising their goals and/or setting new goals along the way building to greater goal attainment and self-determination.
Impact of SDLMI: Community
To inform ongoing implementation and adoption of the SDLMI: Community by other organizations, an external program evaluator gathered feedback from participants with intellectual and developmental disabilities, facilitators and supporters who engaged in the SDLMI: Community. All noted the impact of the SDLMI: Community process and the growth participants experienced. They also noted the importance of changes in expectations of facilitators and supporters, supporting the idea that promoting self-determination necessitates changing systems of support as well as empowering the person and providing guidance for ongoing training and coaching that is needed for facilitators and supports to advance self-determination. Key catalysts for ongoing implementation identified by SDLMI: Community participants, facilitators, and supporters included the power of opportunities to build confidence, social supports, and to practice and refine the SDLMI process. Key barriers that need to be addressed during implementation included increasing communication with and raising expectations of supporters and addressing issues related to transportation. We share how each of these three unique groups—participants with intellectual and developmental disabilities, facilitators, and supporters—described these issues in the in the sections that follow to provide guidance for practitioners seeking to leverage these catalysts and navigate around these barriers as they seek to implement the SDLMI: Community. We organize the sections by role to recognize the distinct perspective each group brings, which can be considered in implementation.
SDLMI: Community Participants
Participants emphasized the importance of being able to set goals and have opportunities to access new and different ways to think about taking action in their lives. Each participant was able to set their individualized goal and take action steps during the SDLMI: Community, suggesting the criticality of the self-directed goal setting process in ongoing implementation. Across participants, there were a range of individualized goals, reflecting the feasibility of group SDLMI: Community delivery that retained a focus on each person identifying a goal that mattered to them. Goals reflected a broad range of adult roles and responsibilities including employment (e.g., I want to be a teacher), transportation (e.g., I want to learn to drive), and moving to a preferred setting (e.g., I want to work on moving out on my own). Participants also shared why they found the SDLMI: Community beneficial, highlighting the importance of the self-directed process that empowers people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to set their own goals rather than have goals imposed upon them.
Participants also noted the importance of building community within their groups and learning together. This highlights the power of group-based delivery, when implementing the SDLMI: Community. Participants commonly built connections with one another outside of sessions, becoming Facebook friends and messaging each other during and after SDLMI: Community sessions. Participants also highlighted how important it was to have facilitators inside and supporters outside sessions that believed in their self-determination, highlighting the need to foster the buy-in of supports as well as rigorous training of facilitators.
SDLMI: Community Facilitators
For our implementation of the SDLMI: Community, facilitators were traditionally graduate or undergraduate students who previously completed an undergraduate course on Developmental Disabilities or demonstrated experience and knowledge working alongside individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. All facilitators complete a standardized training in SDLMI: Community implementation and receive ongoing facilitator coaching provided by self-determination experts. Trainings and coaching are focused on how to deliver the SDLMI, particularly as the role of a SDLMI facilitator is as a supporter and advocate rather than the expert, which differs from other intervention approaches. For adoption by other practitioners, identifying facilitators with the skills needed for delivering the SDLMI: Community, as well as ensuring access to standardized training and coaching on the intervention is essential.
The five SDLMI: Community facilitators interviewed noted impacts of the program over the 32 sessions; they highlighted how this long-term engagement was essential to building self-determination skills. Facilitators highlighted the importance of starting with the 12 Finding Me sessions to build community within the group and create space for adults to talk about topics (e.g., dreams, likes, and dislikes) that many, particularly older participants, had not routinely discussed in a group setting. Facilitators noted how SDLMI session content, examples, and supports needed to be individualized to the experiences of group participants, suggesting the importance of training that addresses the need to individualize materials. Facilitators indicated that some participants had very limited experiences and opportunities necessitating time for building participants’ self-awareness and confidence in envisioning a desired future. Facilitators noted how over time and as participants grew in skills and confidence, their aspirations and goals began to better reflect the participant’s own vision for their future.
Similar to participants, facilitators also noted the impact of the group setting and peer-to-peer supports. Facilitators emphasized how they saw friendships and mutual support emerging, evidenced by participants knowing each other’s goals and checking-in and encouraging each other. Facilitators also noted that the program created opportunities to build skills and confidence in talking in groups and sharing information about one’s strengths, which some participants were uncomfortable with at the start.
Facilitators recognized the importance of really understanding the SDLMI process. The SDLMI process and its implementation does not emphasize the attainment of goals, rather the focus is placed on learning a process to identify a vision for the future, to name goals, to build and test action plans, and to adjust goals and action plans as needed. The intended outcome of the SDLMI is learning to act in goal-oriented ways and build self-determination and strategies to recruit supports, adjust goals, and break down aspirations into meaningful action steps. Facilitators noted how Phase 2 (What is My Plan?) is where participants really start to think about how their actions impact their goal attainment, how they need to think about what they want to be doing, what supports they have, and what adjustment they might need to make just as much as thinking about attaining their goal. Facilitators described how participants also learned that it was okay to change a goal or to try something different. These perspectives highlight the importance of training that emphasizes the importance of goal orientations and opportunities to explore and change and refine goals, over time.
Facilitators noted barriers that were critical to consider in order for self-determination to be a reality and to make the SDLMI: Community sessions maximally impactful. In particular, the importance of involving supporters (e.g., family members, staff) throughout the process was repeated several times by all five facilitators. Facilitators specifically discussed the negative impact on participants’ skill development and goal achievement when the participants’ supporters did not have high expectations for the participant’s self-determination or support for the participant’s self-directed goals. Facilitators noted challenges when support staff appeared uninvested or uninterested in supporting the participant in the SDLMI: Community process. Facilitators noticed that when communication became limited or difficult with supporters, participants were more likely to be late or miss sessions all together. Facilitators noted that many participants who lived in group homes faced transportation issues (e.g., participants were often late because staff were unable to prioritize getting participants to sessions on time due to competing demands). Facilitators shared that some support staff questioned why new goals were needed, particularly if the new goals did not align with supports currently being provided through the participant’s individualized plan. All of these must be considered by future implementers, and the need for implementing strategies to educate and promote the engagement of supporters in the SDLMI: Community process must be highlighted.
As a concrete example, facilitators suggested it could be useful to further engage supporters in the SDLMI: Community process, outside of just the final session. Facilitators indicated that they wanted supporters to know about the goals participants set, the actions participants had taken, and what participants learned across each session. Facilitators emphasized how they sought to advance building a system of support for self-determination in partnership with participants and their supporters by encouraging participants to talk with and lean on their supporters to help them take action steps to meet their goals in-between sessions.
Interestingly, facilitators also described how they learned and grew in their own self-determination and began to recognize that self-determination is an inclusive skill for everyone. Facilitators shared how they found they were using the same basic skills in their own lives (e.g., setting a goal, making a plan, re-evaluating and adjusting) that they were talking about in sessions and realized that everything in life is about working toward the next step to achieve the next goal. Facilitators reflected on the inclusive nature of self-determination as a basic part of living a productive and purposeful life. One facilitator described self-determination as “muscle memory” that gets stronger and better as it is practiced. These perspectives highlight ways that future implementers can continue to expand the connections made through the SDLMI: Community and ways to engage facilitators and supporters in recognizing the power of self-determination for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, as well as themselves.
SDLMI: Community Supporters
Two supporters, one parent and one direct support staff, of two participants shared impacts of SDLMI: Community. Supporters highlighted how the program helped the participant set and work toward goals and helped them, as supporters have more realistic expectations of the participant and implement more effective processes at home. Supporters discussed how SDLMI: Community helps break down meeting a goal into concrete steps and helps participants know where to start to accomplish a goal. One supporter noted how helpful it was to learn the SDLMI process alongside the participant and shared how they implemented the process in their everyday conversations and day-to-day life at home. Supporters indicated that shared terms and phrases learned from SDLMI: Community were particularly beneficial to foster problem-solving. Supporters also highlighted how the SDLMI: Community changed their expectations of the participants. As participants went through the SDLMI process, supporters began to see the benefits of the group not only in fostering social interactions, but also in teaching the process of what it takes to set and meet a personal goal. This suggests the impacts that understanding the SDLMI: Community process can have for supporters and highlights the importance in future practice to identify strategies to engage supporters for all SDLMI: Community participants, as only two supporters were engaged enough to participate in the program evaluation, suggesting a new for new and different approaches to supporter engagement, as this can be a barrier (when lacking) or a catalyst (when present) of self-determination outcomes.
Conclusion
The perspectives of the SDLMI: Community participants, facilitators, and supporters, coupled with previous data on the feasibility and impact of the SDLMI: Community program, highlight the importance of creating more education and training opportunities throughout adulthood for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Such programming provides the opportunities and skills necessary for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities to build confidence and aspirations for their future and learn processes and test action steps to reach their vision. This will require initiating systemic changes in HCBS and other support systems to truly enable person-centered, self-determination supports and services, and to scale up access to training and reimbursement for SDLMI: Community. The SDLMI: Community approach highlighted here provides practitioners with an opportunity to work toward systemic change that can positively impact people in their day-to-day lives actualizing opportunities for self-determination. It is critical that practitioners receive training and implement community-based programming, like SDLMI: Community, that raises expectations for self-determination and goal-oriented actions among adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their supporters.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Jillian Ober with the Nisonger Center at Ohio State University and Rebecca Havis, Abby Crouse, Kacey Ward, Casey Lewis, and Emily Tucker with the Center for Developmental Disabilities at Oklahoma State University for their contributions to this work. The authors would also like to thank the Kansas University Center on Developmental Disabilities team as well as all of the people with intellectual and developmental disabilities who have contributed to the development of the SDLMI across the world.
Conflict of Interest
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported in part by non-competitive external contracts with Oklahoma Department of Human Services Developmental Disabilities Services.
Author Biographies
Jennifer L. Jones is a professor of Human Development and Family Science and the director of the Center for Developmental Disabilities at Oklahoma State University. Jennifer’s deep respect and appreciation for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families informs all aspects of her scholarship and is the driving force in her research, instruction, and community engagement.
Karrie A. Shogren is the director of the Kansas University Center on Disabilities and the Ross and Marianna Beach Distinguished Professor of Special Education at the University of Kansas. Karrie has devoted her career to partnering with people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to advance self-determination and build systems of support that promote engagement and agency.
Kami L. Gallus, PhD, LMFT is a professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Science and associate director of the Center for Developmental Disabilities at Oklahoma State University. A licensed marriage and family therapist, Kami’s scholarship focuses on enhancing individual functioning, belonging, and relationship outcomes among marginalized and traditionally under-served populations. Her systemic approach to applied research and community engagement focuses on changing the understanding of the individual across contexts to provide supports that enhance quality of life.