copyright 2004 by

TASH

Research & Practice for Persons with Severe Disabihties

2004, Vol. 29, No. 3, 161-168

CLASSIC TASH ARTICLE III

Reprinted from The Joumai of The Association for the Severely Handicapped, Volume 9(3), Fall, 1984.

The Importance of Choice-Making Skills

For Students with Severe Disabilities
Mayer Shevin and Nancy K. Klein.
Author Information
Mayer Shevin, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Specialized
Instructional Programs, Cleveland State University.
Nancy K. Klein, Ph.D., Professor, Specialized Instructional Programs, Cleveland State University.
Article Descriptors
autonomy; behavior management; choice-making; curriculum
design; independence; self-management; severely retarded

choice in school, at home, and in community settings.

Some possible areas for classroom activities are suggested, including (a) the design and implementation of
age-appropriate experiences; and (b) the creation of
opportunities, both in and out of school, for exercising choice.

Making choices is an essential part of functioning

independently as an adult in society. Activities
specifically directed toward helping students leam to
make choices, however, are typically neglected in
educational programs for students with severe
disabilities. This paper presents a rationale for the inclusion of choice-making as an important skill area for
persons with severe disabilities. Behavioral approaches
that present useful means of conceptualizing choicemaking in the school life of severely disabled students
are identified. Procedures are suggested for teaching
choice-making skills, for integrating opportunities for
exercising those skills throughout the course of the student 's school life, andfor fostering choice-making skills
through the use of logical consequences.

For non-handicapped children, little or no formal attention is paid in school to the establishment of skills
related to autonomy and to choice-making; however,
most children will nevertheless acquire such skills during their childhood. In contrast, we cannot predict
with any confidence that these autonomous skills will
develop in this informal fashion for students who are
retarded. Retarded students are likely to have very
limited opportunity for learning through interaction
with, and observation of, normal agemates and older
children (Porter, Ramsey, Tremblay, laccobo, &
Crawley, 1978). Such self-reliance is important to the
quality of life of individuals who are retarded if they
are to reap the benefits of normalized services. Schools
must take responsibility for teaching such skills directly
and explicitly. Concurrently, analysis of current programs must be undertaken to determine which aspects
of programming serve to deter the development of selfreliance and independence related to making choices.
Students who are severely retarded may require extensive assistance in developing the skills necessary for
exercising choice, rather tJian merely following
teachers' or parents' leads. Learning to make choices
can extend to areas of major life concerns such as vocation, residence, and consent to medical treatment, as
well as to relatively minor, but cumulatively significant day-to-day decisions such as choice of recreational
activities, partners for social activities, food, clothing,
music, seating, and scheduling.

During the past decade, implementation of the normalization principle has resulted in a restructuring of
educational and residential services for persons with
severe handicaps. This system change has been accompanied by a reexamination of curricular content for
these students. Whereas severely handicapped persons
in institutions and in schools traditionally have been
taught compliance, more recent training programs
reflect new expectations and views of people with
severe disabilities. Professionals are now focusing on
strategies to enable these citizens to avail themselves
of the opportunities inherent in community facilities
by transferring the focus from compliance to fostering independence and self-reliance (Wehman &
McLaughlin, 1981).
One aspect of teaching independence that has been
neglected is teaching severely handicapped persons to
make choices. This paper presents a rationale for the
need to structure teaching activities to enable these
students with severe handicaps to exercise their own
161

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Shevin and Klein

Defining and Assessing Choice-Making

Deflning choice-making
Most studies which look at choice-making in people who are severely retarded (Holvoet, Brewer.
Mulligan, Guess, Helmstetter, & Riggs, 1981; Mithaug
& Hanawalt, 1978; Mithaug & Mar, 1980; Wehman,
1979; and Wuerch & Voeltz, 1982) do not include
definitions of "choice-making" per se. There does not
appear to be a common definition of choice-making
in this field that addresses the student's desires as integral to the process. In other words, helping the child
to understand what she actually wants is not usually
considered as part of the act of' 'choosing something.''
The absence of such a feature in a working definition
of "choice" prevents professionals in the field from
focusing on issues related to the disabled individual's
role in setting her own objectives, and in exercising
autonomous control as a consumer of habilitative and
educational services. Without a view of choice-making
that includes teaching children to identify personal
preferences, professionals and advocates are at risk of
mistaking lack of protest for informed consent, habitual
behavior for active choice, and resignation to one's lot
for contentment with that lot. There is a need to be
able to determine, in a given situation, whether or not
a student or client is exercising real autonomy.
This determination is most difficult for those with
seriously limited behavioral repertoires. Two examples
will illustrate the complexity of this issue:
1. A teacher wishes to teach a student to operate a
soft-drink machine, so that she may purchase a drink
during breaktime. The student, in her current operation of the machine, puts the coins in the coin slot, and
then, without directing her eyes at the machine, slaps
her hand against the machine's face until she hits one
of the panels. When a can of soda falls into the receptacle, she picks it up, Of)ens it and drinks the soda. Can
that student be said to have chosen that particular
brand?
2. A workshop supervisor asks a worker who is sitting at a table containing the materials for an assembly
task to begin screwing the nut-and-bolt sets together.
Two minutes later, the supervisor sees that no sets have
been assembled by that worker. Is the supervisor to
consider the worker as having been non-compliant, as
having misunderstood the task, or as having chosen
not to participate?
For the purposes of this paper, "choosing" is defined as the act ofan individual's selection of a preferred alternative from among several familiar options.
The use of the word "preferred" in this definition
highlights the assumption that people with severe
disabilities have personal preferences, likes and
dislikes, which they can learn to identify for themselves
through ongoing educational experiences. It is assumed
that persons with severe handicaps can learn to express
their preferences, and that parents, teachers and

managers in their environment can learn to be responsive to both typical and atypical expressions of choice.
The emphasis on selection among familiar options
highlights the longitudinal nature of education and programming for meaningful choice-making.
Research in choice-making
For the special educator engaged in fostering choicemaking activities in students who are severely retarded,
two areas of the research literature are of particular
interest: (1) research that documents the effects of
choice-making activities on learning, classroom
behavior, skill generalization, and independent functioning in regular and special education settings; and
(2) studies that address the specific problems related
to assessing and developing choice-making skills in
students who are severely retarded.
Holvoet, Brewer, Mulligan, Guess, Helmstetter and
Riggs (1981), in a survey of the experimental literature
related to the effect of choices on learning rate and student motivation, found few studies in which the effects
of choice-making on school behavior had been studied
in students who are retarded. However, they identified
several studies from the regular education literature
(Berk, 1976; Felixbrod & O'Leary, 1973; Hockstra,
1978; White, 1977) which documented the positive effects of choice-making on learning rate. Researchers
who have looked at choice-making by individuals who
are severely retarded (Holvoet et al., 1981; Mithaug
& Hanawalt, 1978; Mithaug & Mar, 1980) have found
that one cannot assume that a student has made a choice
simply because that student has acted in a situation in
which choice is permitted. Mithaug and Hanawalt
(1978) have described the ambiguities which arise
when individuals who are severely retarded are
presented with opportunities for choice-making, since
these individuals may lack precise verbal responses,
facial expressions, task avoidance behaviors, and other
means by which preferences are typically
communicated.
In studies with students who are severely retarded,
as in studies with nonhandicapped students, choice appears to be seen as "any student behavior, deemed appropriate by the experimenter, in a setting in which
more than one behavior is deemed appropriate," provided only that the experimenter has demonstrated that
the student's behavior relative to the various possible
tasks is somewhat consistent over time. In other words,
our profession has focused on choice-making as a permissible activity, rather than as a teaching target. For
many students who are severely retarded, this may
mean that they remain dependent on others for direction, even though the theoretical possibility of choice
does exist. In contrast, this paper suggests that choicemaking is a viable teaching target, to be subjected to
task analysis, planning, implementation and evaluation
similar to those which are characteristic of more traditional content areas.

163

Choice-Making

Assessing choice-making
Some of the information needed to determine
whether choosing is taking place on any given occasion can be identified through the use of the "ABC"
analytic model of applied behavior analysis (e.g.
Sulzer-Azaroff & Mayer, 1977). The use of this model
is enhanced when observers incorporate additional
behavioral data that are not typically collected or valued
within the applied behavior analytic model. This includes information related to the student's previous
history, which may not be easily available to the clinician or teacher. Also of importance are descriptions
of behaviors that are not previously specified in
research designs or IEPs as "target behaviors." Due
to the precision of descriptive observation required,
and the inability of professionals to predict in advance
the "spontaneous behaviors" being looked for, such
behaviors do not easily lend themselves to quantitative
recording or reductionist coding procedures.
Rather than viewing choice-making as a single target
behavior, an array of related behaviors that comprise
the target must be considered. For example, in describing choice-making related to workshop tasks, such an
array might include quantitative data on latency, rate
and intensity of on-task behavior, descriptive information on socialization, facial expression and body
language during the task, and responses to interview
questions related to the workshop tasks among which
choices are to be made.
In order to arrive at a meaningful characterization
of choice-making, educators need to go beyond the
typical scope of applied behavior analysis. Fortunately, there are alternative behavioral approaches, each
with a substantial theoretical and research base, upon
which professionals can draw:
1. Studies of verbal interaction: Although most of
their work has centered on issues of affective and social
development. Bell and Ainsworth (1972) have identified in operational terms the concept of the responsive parent, and have documented the role of that adult
in infant development. In their study, the important
variables in parental behavior that were related to the
social and affective development of their children were
related to the degree to which the parents were responsive, that is, the degree to which they came under the
control of the expressive behavior (i.e., the crying) of
their children. (For a review of this literature in relation to crying, see Shevin, 1979.) Recent work by
Rogers-Warren (1981) has documented the effects of
such parent-child interaction on more advanced levels
of language development, and has provided a basis for
characterizing such interactions behaviorally. Work by
Sapon and Kaczmarek (1975) and Kaczmarek (1977)
in the descriptive analysis of verbal behavior provides
us with an analytic framework for looking at behavioral
development as an ongoing expansion of corresponding productive and receptive verbal repertoires between

children and those around them. These models are applicable in the study of choice-making, in that they provide the basis for a global characterization of adultchild relationships in terms of the degree to which the
adult's behavior is guided by that of the child, as well
as providing a means of studying the shifts which take
place in those adult-child relationships over time.
2. Environmentat psychoiogy and ecological
behaviorism: In their analysis of the practice of bodyrocking in residential institutions for retarded persons,
Klaber and Butterfield (1968) studied body-rocking not
as an indication of the deviance or deficits of the individuals displaying the behavior, but rather as a
diagnostic indicator of the level of care and the appropriateness of programming received by the residents
in various institutions. Rogers-Warren and Warren
(1977), in a collection entitled "Ecological Perspectives in Behavior Analysis, "have assembled the works
of authors who provide models for looking at behavior
not as a series of isolated target behaviors, but as networks of interactive behaviors existing in a material
and social context, in which students and teachers are
both interactive participants.
These broader perspectives and contextual
frameworks provide richer descriptions of those
behaviors which, when viewed narrowly, are often
characterized as "off-task," "non-compliant" or "deviant" behaviors. For the student with limited social
and communicative repertoires, it may be precisely
those off-task behaviors which represent the most effective current means of exercising some control over
the environment, and are thus the best available expression of personal choice.
A number of common features are found in the approaches described above, which are pertinent to the
area of choice-making. They provide special contexts
for considering students' behavior:
1. professional attention is focused on the similarities
which exist among all people, rather than on deficits
and differences;
2. descriptions of behavior take into account the
transactional nature of human interactions, considering the activities of all of the participants in an interaction, not only the actions of the deviant one; and
3. an attempt to describe students' behavior, to the
greatest extent possible, from the students' perspective, rather than from those of the teacher or the institution, undergirds this process.

Notes Toward a
Choice-Fostering Curriculum
Professionals concerned with fostering choicemaking in students with severe disabilities are traveling in relatively uncharted terrritory, without the comforts of traditional behavioral definitions and research
methodologies. However, the lack of a precise,
familiar terminology should not deter professionals

164
from taking steps toward fostering those skills in
whatever settings they are working. A multiplicity of
approaches by professionals and advocates sharing a
common commitment to individual rights and individual development will provide the experiential basis
out of which comparative research methodologies and
new evaluation designs can grow.
As instructional procedures and behavioral targets
related to choice-making are developed, two reference
points can guide these efforts: identification of ways
in which most citizens typically indicate and exercise
choice in our society, and identification of mechanisms,
however atypical, by which students with severe
disabilities currently make their wishes known. The
goal, of course, is to teach students culturally normative ways of exercising choice, as alternatives to
biting, flinging or screaming. However, teachers must
avoid being trapped into the absurdity of spending
many years prodding a non-compliant child through
a "choice-making readiness program," while labeling the behaviors by which the child may be currently
demonstrating preferences as stubborn or manipulative.
Successful fostering of choice-making will require
both systematic teaching of new skills, and provision
of opportunities to practice those skills in the classroom
and in natural settings at home and in the community.
There are at least three essential components to a
choice-fostering curriculum: (a) cognitive/discrimination skill clusters; (b) affective skill clusters; and (c)
generalization of skills in real-life experiences.
Included in the cognitive/discrimination skill clusters
are those skills which enable the learner to understand
and discriminate from among alternatives as a prerequisite to acting. Among the skills in this component
are visual, auditory, tactile and gustatory discrimination skills, and the understanding of such concepts as
"choose," "finish," "now," "later," "more," and
so forth.
The affective skill cluster includes concepts such as
"I like/don't like," "I prefer," "I want to/don't want
to do," and so forth. These affective terms are introduced in a choice-making episode at the time that
the choice is actually made.
The real-life experiences are the activities, both inside and outside of the classroom, which form the content of choices to be made. These include choices of:
food, clothing, toys, activities, activity partners, etc.
Classroom choices may also include choices available
within behavior contracting systems, such as choices
of reinforcers, target behaviors, working conditions,
etc.
The age and competence of the child are critical factors to consider when selecting real-life experiences
for the classroom. Therefore, the teacher must assess
the significance and/or risk of the choices presented
in relation to the age and ability of the child. For example, a four-year-old child might have the opportunity

Shevin and Klein

to choose among various snacks and drinks at snacktime, but would not be allowed to choose between
wearing a lightweight jacket or a snowsuit when the
outside temperature is below freezing. As the child
becomes older and, with increasing practice, more
adept at choice-making, the significance, that is the
consequences of that child's choices, must grow accordingly. For example, a twenty-year-old who has
learned to make choices might be given the opportunity
to choose an apartment. This real-life choice, while
beyond the capability of a four-year-old child, is also
beyond the capability of the student labeled retarded
who has had no previous experience with choicemaking. As retarded children move toward adulthood,
they will also benefit from choice-making which expands from choices in a small number of areas to
choices across a broad number of domains.
Brown et al. (1980) have identified a process for the
establishment of appropriate educational plans for
students with severe disabilities. These procedures include strategies for inventories involving students, their
parents and guardians, and the community environments within which the students currently or
potentially function. Such individualized and
ecologically based strategies for identification of curricular content and instructional design are directly applicable to the determination of the highest priority
areas for the targeting of choice-making activities. The
single departure from the model described by Brown
et al. (1980) is that, in their list of 16 dimensions to
be considered in prioritizing curricular content, student preference is listed as one item, without assuming any special importance. For obvious reasons, in
the curricular area of choice-fostering skills, student
preference will, by definition, assume a position of
highest consideration in prioritizing goals.
Three contexts for fostering choice-making skills in
severely retarded students will be described below.
These include:
1. classroom activities designed to teach specific
choice-making skills;
2. integration of choice-making opportunities
throughout the student's day, across curricular
domains; and
3. provision of opportunities, both inside and outside of school, for students to experience the
benefits and consequences of choices they have
made.
Fostering Choices Through Specific Curricular
Units
The following procedures are suggested as an example of the activities that a hypothetical teacher of
four- to six-year-old children with severe disabilities
might follow. They will serve to illustrate the inclusion of specific choice-fostering content in a school's
curriculum.
1. Content selection the ages and abilities of the

Choice-Making

children in the class are considered prior to selecting

a real-life experience on which to focus. LFsing the procedures described by Brown et al. (1980) for the
establishment of functional, age-appropriate objectives,
a teacher of young children may select food as an appropriate category for teaching choice-making skills.
2. Cognitive/discrimination skill cluster identification of the discrimination skills used when a child
makes food choices. These skills include some method
of indicating choice (e.g., pointing), and the ability to
discriminate between foods of similar appearance (e.g.,
oranges and lemons). Following the visual discrimination activities, the child is given the opportunity to experience the differences in taste of these objects. Such
visual and gustatory discrimination skills will form the
foundation for subsequent affectively based decisionmaking.
3. Affective skill cluster once the child has
discriminated among different foods, and has indicated
through either typical or atypical communication modes
which of these foods he prefers, the teacher models
words or gestures that can be used to label the child's
responses to the foods. As the child tastes, and subsequently reaches for, the orange, the teacher may use
words such as "tastes good," "I like it," or "tastes
sweet." As the child tastes the lemon, and subsequently
grimaces, refiises it or pushes it away, the teacher may
use words such as "tastes sour," "that's not good,"
or "I don't like that." Initially, the teacher might use
one food which is likely to be selected, and another
which is likely to be rejected (e.g., apple and onion).
Subsequently, the child can be presented with two
desirable foods, and be taught to indicate a favorite.
Consultation with parents is important at this stage. It
is important for the teacher to be sensitive to expressions of student preference, to model the affective terminology, to point out to the child that a choice has
been made, and to elicit feedback from the child about
whether she likes the choice.
Once these initial discriminations are mastered, and
the child can systematically label preferences, the
child's choice-making skills may be refined in the
following ways:
1. by decreasing the gradations of the discriminations made within a domain (e.g., gross to
fine);
2. by increasing the number of objects among
which discriminations are made; and
3. by adding new domains within which
discriminations are made.
These examples assume that the students display
relatively well developed receptive and expressive
verbal repertoires. Additional concerns must be addressed by teachers who work with students who have
extremely limited communicative skills. For students
who display non-standard or inconsistent communicative behavior, the teacher must frequently take pains

165
to ascertain that the student's message has been accurately received. Duncan, Sbardellati, Maheady and
Sainato (1981) have suggested a continuum of response
modes to be used in testng and assessment situations,
which lend themselves to the determination of student
choices. They recommend that, in decreasing order of
desirability, the following communication modes be
used: (a) use of expressive language responses (vocal);
(b) use of pointing responses; (c) use of existing motor
responses; (d) training of existing inconsistent
responses; and (e) teaching of a nonexistent response
(p. 18).
One potential difficulty to which teachers must be
attuned is that gestures and facial expressions, which
have a commonly interpreted meaning in society at
large, may be used inadvertently in non-standard ways
by students. For example, a cJiild with limited communication skills or with cerebral palsy may smile
when asked if she wants something to drink; the smile
may not necessarily indicate a " y e s " answer to the
question.
A second difficulty is that, for a student whose
limited communication includes a consistent "yes/no"
response, the student's preference in a given case may
not be able to be expressed by a simple yes or no. For
example: a teacher says to Albert, "Here's the
xylophone, the trumpet, and the ocarina. Would you
like to play with the trumpet?" Albert nods his head
"yes." The teacher hands Albert the trumpet. He tums
it over in his hands, looks into the mouthpiece, puts
it down on the table, points to the ocarina, and whines.
The teacher says, "No, Albert, you already chose the
trumpet."
In this situation, Albert's preference may have been
"Let me look at the trumpet for a moment, and then
I'll decide which instrument I'd like." However, when
limited in his productive verbal behavior to a yes/no
response, the closest he is able to come is to indicate
" y e s . " The teacher, however, may erroneously conclude only that Albert "doesn't know what he wants."
Such conflicts and misunderstandings are less likely
to arise in situations in which the choices available to
students are more open-ended, less limited ones, and
in situations in which the student has many opportunities to experience directly the various alternatives
prior to making a choice. Furthermore, ongoing communication among parents, teachers and other professionals and caretakers in the student's environment,
using formal systems such as the Communication
Record (Kollinzas, 1983) or less formal anecdotal communications, will allow those directly involved with
an individual to become aware of the student's
preferences.
Integrating Choice-Making Throughout the School
Day
As important as the establishment of discrete choicemaking skills might be, it will be of little avail if choice-

166

Shevin and Klein

making in school is relegated to the 9:00-to-9:45 time

slot on Tuesdays and Thursdays. In order for persons
considered severely retarded to learn to make choices
and to benefit personally from the opportunity, choice
experiences must be fostered throughout the school day
by incorporating them into all facets of school activity, across all specific academic or habilitative skills.
Providing students with meaningful choices
throughout the day is an enterprise which presents the
typical teacher with many difficulties. Such a departure from typical teacher behavior is likely to bring
into conflict the various roles which the teacher is required to play. A balance must be struck between the
teacher's commitment to the development of student
independence on one hand, and a teacher's other professional responsibilities which may circumscribe the
potential areas of choice. Teachers are responsible for
maintaining student health and safety; for following
school policy concerning attendance, noise level, and
behavior in public areas; for addressing parental
priorities which may not be identical with those of the
teacher or the student; and for preventing one student's
exercise of choice from infringing on the rights of the
other students in the class.
The key to maintaining the balance between student
choice and professional responsibility rests upon:
1. incorporating student choice as an early step
in the instructional process;
2. increasing the number of decisions related to
a given activity which the student makes;
3. increasing the number of domains in which
decisions are made;
4. raising the significance in terms of risk and
long-term consequences of the choices which
the student makes; and
5. clear communication with the student concerning areas of possible choice, and the limits
within which choices can be made.
All people within our "free society" operate within
certain constraints. We are free within those constraints
to the extent to which we recognize the point where
our freedom to operate ends and society's exercise of
control begins. In this context, the teacher's presentation of limited choices to students throughout the school
day is both normalizing and contributory to real
autonomy, providing that students are able to recognize
their autonomy in a particular area. Thus, if classroom
choices are to be meaningful, they must present
students with options within the parameters of acceptable behavior. The role of the teacher is to assure that
those parameters have been examined critically, and
represent the real limits set by society, rather than the
arbitrarily narrow constraints which characterize
prevailing school practice.
Some of the areas in which classroom choices may
take place are among various objects or activities,
whether or not to engage in a given activity, when to

terminate a given activity, choices among various

means of accomplishing a task, and choices of partners for various tasks. The choices listed here may be
obvious or logical ones to some readers. They are
described here primarily because of their frequent
absence from the typical classroom of students who
are severely retarded (Guess & Siegel-Causey, in
press.)
1. Choices among activities. These choices include
the selection from among two or more valid options.
In other words, the child is presented with a choice
which will be accepted and valued by the teacher
regardless of which alternative is selected. Teachers
are cautioned not to present students with pseudochoices; that is, apparent choices with only one truly
viable option, such as "Would you rather finish your
lunch, or spend the night here in the cafeteria?"
2. Whether or not to engage in an activity. The
child is asked, "Do you want to
?", and
an answer of " N o " by the child will be accepted by
the teacher.
3. When to terminate an activity. The child is
asked, "Shall we do that again?", and an answer of
" N o " will be accepted by the teacher. Alternatively,
the child may indicate to the teacher during an activity, "Let's do something else," and the activity is terminated. Also, when the teacher says, "Let's do
something else," and the child says " N o " or continues
the current activity, the teacher accepts the child's
choice.
4. Alternative means of accomplishing an objective. The child is presented with a task, and a model
of how that task is to be done. The teacher accepts completion of the task, regardless of whether the steps
followed in its completion were identical to those in
the model.
5. Choices of partners for activities. At the outset
of a task, a student may be asked, "Should we ask
somebody to do this with us? Who would you like to
ask?" If the student indicates he or she would like to
do the task with another person in the class, then that
person may be invited to join the teacher and the student in that activity.
These are just a few of the many potential choices
which students might make during tfie school day, if
teachers begin to direct their energies toward expanding opportunities for students in this area.
Choice-Fostering Through Logical Consequences
The following dilemma was related by a teacher of
students with severe disabilities. One of this teacher's
students had earned a trip to a restaurant through a
classroom behavioral contract. The teacher ordered a
fish sandwich. The student said he wanted one, too.
Through previous experience, the teacher knew that
the student did not eat fish when it was given to him.
She reminded him of his earlier negative experiences
with fish; however, he stood firm in his choice. Should

167

Choice-Making

this child have been permitted to order the food that

he probably dislikes, or should the teacher have interceded to prevent his having to face a distasteful
lunch?
In such a situation, it is important that the child be
permitted to exercise his own initiative. To facilitate
this, structured activities which involve tasting a variety
of foods might be arranged to precede the child's exercising choice in this situation. By allowing the child
to live with his choice, the teacher provides the student with an excellent opportunity to understand the
consequences of personal decision-making. Students
who have been labeled as retarded must learn that for
them, as for everyone else, some consequences of their
choices will be negative ones.
Some teachers or parents seem to believe that we
must not allow retarded individuals to fail. It seems
unkind to withhold intervention when a retarded person is going to err. However, persons who are retarded
must not be denied the opportunity to learn from their
own mistakes. Veach (1977) has forcefully described
the importance of this type of experience for young

children in general; Perske (1972) has made an excellent case for "the dignity of risk" as a critical element of normalization for those persons identified as
retarded.

Conclusion
For years, special education practitioners have taken
pride in their skill in identifying curricular areas of importance to students, defining these areas in ways
which lend themselves to meaningful assessment and
task analysis, and developing effective procedures for
establishing skills by assisting students through small,
incremental steps toward mastery. Within that process,
we have sometimes lost track of a primary objective
of special education that is, the preparation of
students who can function effectively without our ongoing expert assistance. Ultimately, our success in
meeting that objective must serve as the basis for
evaluating how successful we have been in all the other
objectives which we set for ourselves as teachers of,
and advocates for, people with severe disabilities.

References
Bell, S. M., & Ainsworth, M. D. S. (1972). Infant crying
and maternal responsiveness. Child Development, 43,
1171-1190.
Berk, R. A. (1976). Effects of choice of instructional methods
on verbal learning tasks. Psychological Reports, 38,
867-870.
Brown, L., Falvey, M., Vincent, L., Kaye, N., Johnson,
F., Ferrara-Parrish, P., & Gruenewald, L. (1980).
Strategies for generating comprehensive, longitudinal and
chronological age appropriate individual educational plans
for adolescent and young adult severely handicapped
students. In L. Brown, M. Falvey, D. Baumgart, I. Pumpian, J. Schroeder, & L. Gruenewald (Eds.), Strategies
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