Evaluating the effects of the self-advocacy strategy on student participation in educational meetings for middle school students with disabilities

Students with disabilities do not participate in their Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings because they lack self-advocacy skills. In order to advocate for themselves, students need to know their needs and strengths as well as appropriately interact with others in a variety of meetings, in- and outside of school. This study used the Self-Advocacy Strategy, delivered via the CD (SACD), to teach self-advocacy skills for 15 middle school students with mild and moderate disabilities. The strategy teaches students the most important social skills (SHARE behaviors), as well as a set of steps needed for them to speak up (I PLAN steps) in educational and other professional meetings, such as an IEP conference. Would this strategy increase students’ knowledge regarding their IEP and their level of self-determination?

The results of the study show that students who learned the strategy provided more information related to their IEP, such as their strongest study or learning skills. However, the instruction did not help the students become more self-determined. In order to evaluate whether students can apply what they learned from this instruction, the group of students who learned the strategy first participated in short meetings (more like discussions) with their special education teachers. Results show that most of the students used the social skills (SHARE behaviors) they learned to appropriately interact with their teachers in these meetings. This study adds more evidence that educators can use the SACD to teach self-advocacy skills for middle school students with disabilities that would assist them to participate in their IEP meetings and other educational meetings central to their learning and future goals.