ON THE FRONT LINES: Q&A ON USING SELF-DETERMINATION PRACTICES IN THE
TRANSITION PROCESS with James E. Martin, Ph.D.

Q: How can transition teachers and employment specialists help people with disabilities discover their job preferences?

The job preference discovery process that leads to informed choice making involves three basic components. First, individuals need the opportunity to experience first-hand a variety of job tasks, settings, and employment characteristics. Second, individuals with disabilities need a means to communicate their preferences. Third, the cycle of exploration, indicating preferences, and making decisions must be repeated until a wide variety of opportunities have been explored and preferences emerge. As individuals learn to indicate their preferences, they can make a match comparison between current preferences and new experiences.

As individuals learn to express their likes and dislikes by using illustrated or written task, setting, and characteristic tools, their accumulated choices can be graphed. These graphs show a picture of their preferences across different job sites.

This situational assessment process yields reliable results. It is both an assessment and teaching process. It is especially useful for those youth and adults who do not have previous vocational experience, and for those who do not have clear preferences.

Q: How can professionals use self-determination practices to help clients solve work-related problems?

Effective on-the-job problem solving requires honest and consistent performance feedback. All too often, individuals with disabilities become involved in a situation where they receive weeks and weeks of positive evaluations, and then when the termination notice comes, everyone is taken by surprise. Honest feedback from the start of a job will empower the individual to change performance as needed to meet supervisor expectations.

The feedback needs to go from the job-site supervisor directly to the worker in a format the worker understands. The worker then must compare their supervisor's feedback to their own self-evaluation. Many times the match process just by itself improves performance. If not, the individual will need to implement a self-directed change process.

Q: How can schools, employment programs, and agencies make the transition to using self-determination practices?

This shift first begins with recognition that individuals with disabilities need the opportunity to make their own choices concerning issues impacting their lives. Choice making, however, does not mean simply asking the person, "What job do you want? " Nor does it mean simply watching the person and making assumptions about their preferences from what's observable. Workers with disabilities need a means to communicate their preferences and opportunities to learn what they like.

Mr. Martin is a co-author of the book, "Self-directed employment: A handbook for transition teachers and employment specialists."

Copyright (c) 2002 by Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission.