The Arc's Self-Determination Scale: Procedural Guidelines

The Arc, he said: “Unlike the staff at the institution, the human
services professionals I met at this job treated me with respect.
They gave me a chance to contribute my input and feedback and
believed in many of my ideas. My colleagues also adapted the
working environment to help me communicate with them” (Gagne,
1994, p. 333).
The movement to support and promote self-determination is
about treating people with dignity and respect. It is about enabling
people with disabilities to achieve independence, integration and
inclusion to the greatest extent possible by providing them the
opportunities to learn the skills they need and the chance to put
those skills into action. It is about empowerment, choice and
control. One critical aspect of empowerment is the equitable
distribution of valued, and often scarce, resources, like jobs,
financial security and health care. People with disabilities
continue to experience social isolation, segregation, un- and underemployment,
and discrimination. It is critical to provide greater
opportunities for inclusion and choice, employment, home
ownership and social integration. A key factor to achieving this is
achieving the outcome that adults with disabilities are selfdetermined.
Gagne (1994) makes the same point when he
summarized his life experiences:
“I wrote this story to let people know what it was like
growing up in an institution from the 1950’s through the
1970’s. The total lack of power in making decisions about
my life made me angry, and I was treated as an outcast.
The staff’s abuse, neglect, and insensitivity kept me from
being educated and learning the other basic skills that many
children learn from caring adults. When I got into the real
world, I wasn’t sure what my role was. Nobody ever talked
to me or taught me how to be successful. I learned to
survive mostly on my own and with the help of a few good
people.
I feel that what happened to me should never
happen again” (p. 334).
Self-Determination and Youth with Mental Retardation
Many people presume that the presence of a significant cognitive
or intellectual impairment precludes, a priori, an individual from
becoming competent. The terms "self-determined" and "severe
disability" are usually viewed as mutually exclusive. The presence
of a severe cognitive disability is more likely to evoke assumptions
of incompetent decision-making, protectionism, legal
guardianship, and vulnerability than competency, effective
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