Topics in Early Childhood Special Education

The effects of choice-making interventions have been the topic of an impressive number of empirical studies across the complementary fields of special education (Kern et al., 1998) and self-determination (Mithaug, Mithaug, Agran, Martin, & Wehmeyer, 2003). In general, choice refers to the act of selecting between options at a given moment in time. Alternatively, preference has been defined as the individual’s history of past choice patterns (Romaniuk & Miltenberger, 2001). The results of much of the previous research on choice making have involved using choice as part of a treat-ment package to affect positively such outcome areas as language development, daily living independence, accu-racy of work task completion, and a wide range of challeng