Self-determination for people with developmental disabilities and autism: Two self-advocates’ perspectives

issue and believe that many readers will find it of interest. Self-determination has been identified with people with disabilities only since 1988. This article traces the history of the civil rights, disability rights, and self-advocacy movements. What began as a small federal initiative is presently a national effort in health care and other disability service systems and embraces ideas such as self-direction and consumer control. The road to self-determination has been different for three distinct populations: people with physical disabilities, people with cognitive dis-abilities, and people with Asperger syndrome and other autistic conditions. However, they all are striving to control their own lives and gain respect in their communities. Future self-determination efforts must further leadership skills and accentuate the positive values of having a disability. e are pleased that Focus on V Autism and Other Develop-W V V mental Disabilities has de-voted a special series to self-determination. It indicates a recognition by profession-als that the growing movement by peo-ple with disabilities toward self-direction, empowerment, and control of one’s life must be considered by those working in the disability field. The self-determination movement can be described through the history of related social movements, in-cluding the disability rights and empow-erment movements and the normaliza-tion and self-advocacy movements. This article provides an historical account of these movements for people with physi-cal disabilities (some of whom are devel-opmentally disabled), people with more traditional developmental disabilities (many of whom were part of the deinsti-tutionalization movement), and people with autism with a particular emphasis on Asperger syndrome (AS)