The Importance of Self-Advocacy Skills and Self-Determination in Young Adults with Learning Differences
For young adults with learning challenges, learning independent living skills related to self-advocacy and self-determination is a critical step in making the transition from childhood to adulthood as smooth and empowering as possible.
Self-Advocacy for Young Adults with Learning Differences
Young adults with learning differences have different needs in educational settings, social settings, and the workplace. Self-advocacy skills help boost a young person’s confidence so that they can ask for accommodations and clearly communicate their needs in virtually any scenario.
What Is Self-Advocacy?
According to the Learning Disabilities Association of America, self-advocacy is “the ability to speak up for yourself and the things that are important to you.” For some young people, self-advocacy activities may come naturally, but for many others with learning differences, building independence in their adult lives is more challenging and requires developing a set of skills that need to be nurtured and practiced on a regular basis.
Examples of Self-Advocacy
According to the American Council on Education (ACE), examples of critical self-advocacy skills for individuals with learning differences include self-awareness, communication, successfully navigating available resources, and forming and maintaining healthy relationships. Self-advocacy examples may be as simple as asking a college professor if it is okay to record their lectures or as significant as asking an employer for a different office or desk to accommodate productivity and focus.
Why Is Self-Advocacy Important?
Self-advocacy skills are valuable for everyone, regardless of their age or abilities. Advocating for yourself means speaking up for yourself, contributing to decision-making that impacts you, and requesting accommodations as necessary. For people transitioning from high school to the workplace or to college, self-advocacy is especially important because they will not have the same support system in place as they did while in high school.
The Relationship Between Self-Advocacy and Self-Determination
Self-determination and self-advocacy are deeply linked. Without the skills to ask for help and accommodation, a person’s ability to make choices about their own life can be greatly diminished. Strong self-advocacy skills can provide a clear pathway to self-determination while helping individuals with learning differences to strengthen their self-esteem and self-confidence along the way.
Self-Advocacy and Learning Disabilities
The value of self-advocacy skills is not limited to those with learning differences or learning disabilities. As ableist systems are still in place in many contexts, those that need accommodations because they are neurodivergent or have needs outside of mainstream needs will benefit significantly from being able to advocate for themselves.
Self-Advocacy Skills
One study in the Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability defines self-advocacy as “the ability to communicate one’s needs and wants and to make decisions about the supports needed to achieve them.” As a result, becoming a self-advocate means nurturing and practicing skills like communication, negotiation, compromise, and anticipating your own needs.
How to Develop Self-Advocacy Skills
Developing self-advocacy skills takes time and a lot of practice. Young adults with learning differences should be practicing self-advocacy skills long before making the transition to more independent living. The best place to start is with self-exploration and self-knowledge. People who know their own limitations, what kind of help and accommodations they benefit from the most, and how to communicate their needs already have an advantage when it comes to being successful self-advocates.
Self-Determination for Young Adults with Learning Differences
Self-advocacy is only one essential piece of the puzzle when it comes to young adults with learning disabilities having the best chance at success during the transition to independent living. Self-advocacy skills can act as a pathway to supporting self-determination.
What Is Self-Determination?
Self-determination means making choices for your own life, setting your own goals, and working toward achieving them. Many people consider self-determination to be an essential human right for every person, regardless of their abilities.
Why Is Self-Determination Important?
A recent article in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health notes that “research in the field of disability has stressed self-determination as a key construct because of its impact on the quality of life and the achievement of desired educational and adulthood related outcomes.” In short, self-determination is critical to living a fully engaged and fulfilling life.
Examples of Self-Determination Skills
Self-determination examples include skills that overlap to some degree with self-advocacy and include:
- Setting goals and developing plans to achieve those goals
- Making decisions
- Problem solving
Self-determination can improve outcomes for those individuals who pursue higher education or independent career goals.
How to Teach and Develop Self-Determination Skills
Self-determination skills are critical life skills and should be considered in any curriculum for people with learning differences. Teachers and caregivers can help students learn and practice self-determination skills by including them in decisions about their lives as early as is practical by directly teaching problem solving skills in a program curriculum and including self-determination skills in more general lessons as well as daily life.
Self-Monitoring for Young Adults with Learning Differences
Self-monitoring is another way that young adults with learning differences can take accountability for their own time, accomplishments, and behaviors. Self-monitoring skills can help students with different needs participate fully in their school or workplace.
What Is Self-Monitoring?
According to the American Psychological Association (APA), self-monitoring is “a method used in behavioral management in which individuals keep a record of their behavior (e.g., time spent, form and place of occurrence, feelings during performance), especially in connection with efforts to change or control the self.” Learning self-monitoring can be helpful for students who have not had to manage their own time and resources before.
Self-Monitoring Strategies
Learning how to improve self-monitoring skills can benefit anyone. However, people who struggle with self-monitoring may specifically benefit from self-monitoring strategies, such as creating individualized schedules with clear expectations, recording their feelings and behaviors, and engaging in self-observation. Young adults with learning differences may collaborate with therapists, teachers, or other trusted adults to develop strategies that work best for them.
The Self-Monitoring Theory
The self-monitoring theory is the idea that every individual varies in their ability to respond to social cues and control their public behavior.
High Self-Monitoring
Individuals who qualify as high self-monitoring are aware of and able to respond to social cues as well as control their behaviors in public in response to those cues as well as social norms.
Low Self-Monitoring
Individuals who are low-self monitoring may not be able to recognize or interpret social cues and may not be able to (or care) to alter their behaviors to align with social norms and expectations. Many young adults with learning differences may struggle with low self-monitoring tendencies.
Self-Advocacy and Self-Determination in Young Adults with Learning Differences
Self-advocacy and self-determination, alongside self-monitoring, are critical skills that can help young adults with learning differences reach their independent living goals, no matter what those goals look like. Part-time and full-time experiences at Transitions can help young adults and their families learn and practice these skills before making the leap to college or the workplace. Reach out today for more information or to start the application process.
