The Strategies Instruction Model: A Research-validated Intervention for Students with Learning Disabilities

Abstract

The Strategies Instruction Model (SIM) developed at the University of Kansas by Donald Deshler, Jean Schumaker, and their colleagues was designed to address the cognitive processing deficits of adolescents with learning disabilities. The principle concept of the approach, a strategy, is defined as an individual's approach to a task (Deshler & Lenz, 1989). Strategies include the cognitive and physical behaviors involved in (a) assessing the task requirements and planning how to approach the task, (b) carrying out the plan and monitoring one's implementation, and (c) evaluating one's performance and the results or outcomes related to the performance. Thus, a strategy includes a plan for the overt actions and behaviors to be performed and the guidelines and rules that allow one to make the cognitive decisions necessary to efficiently and effectively use those actions and behaviors (Deshler, Ellis, & Lenz, 1996). Often, an individual may use previously learned basic skills and study skills within a strategy along with his or her knowledge of when, where, why, and how to use the strategy; thus, a strategy might more appropriately be called a strategy system. Designed to address the needs of adolescents with learning disabilities who are generally considered to be inactive learners, lacking in strategies, and unable to generalize previously-learned strategies (e.g., Hall, 1980; Lloyd, 1980; Torgesen, 1977a, 1977b), the SIM is based on the beliefs that most adolescents can learn how to be successful in mainstream environments and that adolescents with learning disabilities should have a voice in what they learn and how quickly they will learn (Deshler & Putnam, 1996).