Promoting Self-Determination: Using Take Action to Teach Goal Attainment

Transition programs that teach self-determination skills must provide students the opportunity to practice these skills. Teaching students goal attainment skills and providing them the opportunity to achieve their own IEP goals is one example of a self-determination oriented transition program. Take Action teaches students the skills needed to attain their goals. In this study, we taught Take Action to 6 adolescents with mild to moderate mental retardation to attain their daily IEP goals. Results show that all students learned to attain their own daily goals and maintained these skills following withdrawal of teacher instruction.