Effects of a Self-Monitoring Checklist as a Component of the Self-Directed IEP

Post-school outcomes for students with intellectual disability continue to lag behind other students with disabilities. One way to improve outcomes for these students is to include them in decisions about their future by teaching students how to participate in their IEP meetings. Self-monitoring provides immediate feedback, motivation, and teaches students to self-regulate what they are learning. In this study, two middle school and two high school students learned the steps of leading their IEP meeting. This study used a multiple baseline across participants design to examine the effects of a self-monitoring checklist as an essential component of the Self-Directed IEP for students with intellectual and multiple disabilities. Results showed three of four students only met criteria once the self-monitoring checklist was introduced. In addition, three students were able to generalize to post-intervention mock IEPs using the self-monitoring checklist. Young adults with intellectual disability are much less likely to attend postsecondary education programs or to be competitively employed as same aged peers without disabilities (Bouck & Joshi, 2012). One reason may be that these students are not always taught about opportunities for after high school or have been left out of the decision-making process for their future. As postsecondary education programs grow, employment opportunities increase, and awareness of possibilities for students with disabilities heighten; post-school outcomes have begun to improve for students across most disability categories. Students with intellectual disability however, continue to lag behind other students with disabilities in these areas (Bouck, 2012; Bouck & Joshi, 2012; Newman et al., 2011). One way to improve outcomes for students with disabilities is to include them in decisions that determine their future (Warger & Burnette, 2000). According to Kohler and Field (2003), student-focused planning provides an avenue for students to develop self-determination skills and self-awareness. Test, Mazzotti, et al. (2009) identified self-advocacy/self-determination skills as a predictor of successful post-school outcomes. Research has found students with disabilities who scored higher on self-determination scales showed an increased ability to create goals and make decisions (Wehmeyer, Palmer, Soukup, Garner, & Lawrence, 2007). Likewise, students with higher self-determination scores also had higher post-school outcomes one year (Wehmeyer & Schwartz, 1997) and three years after high school (Wehmeyer & Palmer, 2003). The IEP process provides a potential opportunity for students to practice and learn selfdetermination skills. Students practice their self-determination skills as they consider their (a) interests, (b) skills and limits, and (c) goals in preparing for their IEP meeting (Martin, Marshall, Maxson, & Jerman, 1996). However, according to the NLTS2 data, only 12% of students with disabilities actively led their transition planning process (Cameto, Levine, & Wagner, 2004). Similarly, Shogren, Kennedy, Dowsett, Villarreal, & Little (2014), found students with intellectual disability showed significantly lower levels of certain self-determination constructs (i.e., psychological empowerment) compared to students with high-incidence disabilities on the NLTS2. For this reason, it is important for educators to teach students with This study was conceptualized while the first author was a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to Karen M. Diegelmann, 15614 Centennial Forest Drive, Huntersville, NC 28078. E-mail: Karen.diegelmann@monarchnc.org Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities, 2018, 53(1), 73–83 © Division on Autism and Developmental Disabilities Self-Monitoring Checklist / 73 intellectual disability about self-determination skills needed to participate in their IEP meetings. One transition curriculum shown to increase student IEP participation is the SelfDirected IEP (Martin et al., 1996), which is designed to teach self-determination skills and build students’ understanding and active participation in their IEP meetings. The SelfDirected IEP curriculum incorporates (a) a DVD or VHS with vignettes of a high school student named Zeke talking to a friend about preparing for his IEP meeting and video segments of Zeke leading his IEP meeting, (b) vocabulary lessons, (c) teacher-directed instruction, (d) student workbook activities, and (e) a checklist for students to use as they role-play the IEP meeting in the last lesson. The Self-Directed IEP has been identified as an evidence-based practice (Test, Fowler, et al., 2009) and shown to be effective in several studies for increasing student IEP participation and leading their IEP meeting (Allen, Smith, Test, Flowers, & Wood, 2001; Arndt, Konrad, & Test, 2006; Kelley, Bartholomew, & Test, 2013; Snyder, 2002; Snyder & Shapiro, 1997; Uphold, 2008). As educators are implementing more transition planning curricula including the SelfDirected IEP, identifying the individual components becomes critical for providing appropriate strategies for individual student success. Test et al. (2004) suggested future research investigate the effects of individual strategies within packaged transition curricula using component analysis (Baer, Wolf, & Risley, 1968). Component analysis can be used to determine the “necessary parts of an intervention” and to “determine how that particular component affects behavior” (Kennedy, 2005, p. 72). Once identified, these components can be emphasized when disseminating research to inform educators how to implement with fidelity, increasing the social validity of the intervention package at the classroom level (Ward-Horner & Sturmey, 2010). One component of the Self-Directed IEP to consider is the Role-Play Checklist included in Chapter 11 of the Teacher Handbook. Several of the earlier studies examining the SelfDirected IEP (Martin et al., 2006; Snyder, 2002; Snyder & Shapiro, 1997) used the Role-Play Checklist as a self-evaluative tool at the conclusion of the last lesson to help the students identify what they had learned. Other studies (Allen et al., 2001; Uphold, 2008), used a checklist throughout the lessons as a self-monitoring tool to scaffold the learning process for students with mild/moderate intellectual disability. In these studies, students used the self-monitoring checklist to self-evaluate as they learned each step of their IEP. Self-monitoring is beneficial for some students as they observe their own behavior and keep track of how they performed using a graph or some other visual recording system (Agran et al., 2005; Reid, Trout, & Schwartz, 2005), providing reinforcement for what was learned and motivation for taking the next step (Agran et al., 2005). Students with intellectual disability often have difficulty with learning and remembering new information (Heward, 2009). When learning with the Self-Directed IEP, students with intellectual disability may benefit from using a self-monitoring checklist to acquire new information about the steps of the IEP and recall that learning at a later time such as during an actual IEP meeting. A self-monitoring checksheet may also provide incentive for staying motivated to the task by checking off the boxes and visualizing their progress. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a self-monitoring checklist as a component of the Self-Directed IEP for students with intellectual on knowledge of the steps for leading their IEP.