Self-determination and future goals in a sample of adults with intellectual disability.
Teaching choice-making and planning skills helps adults with ID dream bigger and set more life goals.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Rodríguez-Martínez et al. (2020) asked adults with intellectual disability about their future goals.
They also measured each adult’s level of self-determination.
The team wanted to see if people who scored higher on self-determination also listed more goals.
What they found
Adults with higher self-determination named more goals.
The goals clustered around four themes: being independent, staying healthy, having friends, and learning new things.
The link stayed strong even after other factors were taken into account.
How this fits with other research
Nickerson et al. (2015) saw the same pattern in high-school students.
In that study, higher self-determination went hand in hand with better grades.
Together, the two papers show the skill matters both in school and after graduation.
Green et al. (2020) looked at young adults with autism plus ID and found low self-determination scores.
That result seems opposite, but the sample had more severe needs.
The studies agree that self-determination is key; they just highlight different ends of the ability range.
Why it matters
If you write transition plans, build lessons that let clients practice choosing, planning, and solving problems.
Each small boost in self-determination can unlock more future goals and stronger buy-in for your program.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: In recent years, increased attention has been directed towards the importance of identifying the future goals of people with intellectual disability (ID) and promoting their abilities to design their future. Consistent with these, the first aim of this study is to investigate the future goals of people with ID in terms of content and temporal distance. Moreover, the second aim of this study is to test the predictive role of self-determination on the number of future goals reported by people with ID. METHODS: In this study, 96 young adults with ID were involved and a mixed method design was chosen. Specifically, qualitative procedures (consensual qualitative analyses) and quantitative procedures (structural equation modelling) were carried out. RESULTS: The results showed that the future goals of people with ID are characterised by different factors related to autonomy, health/well-being, interpersonal relations and personal growth. Moreover, self-determination (assessed with Self-Determination Questionnaire-Version for Adults) predicts a higher number of future goals reported by people with ID. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest the importance of providing adequate support to the development of self-determination.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2020 · doi:10.1111/jir.12696