The purpose of this study was to examine the relation among the related factors of a mentally challenged
person’s self-determination from the viewpoint of recovery from mental handicap. Through theoretical
study, the environmental factors of social support, stigmatization and dwelling surroundings were set as
an independent variable, and the impacts of the environmental factors on a mentally challenged person’s
practice of self-determination through the medium of self-determination ability, such as identity and social
functions, were analyzed. As the analysis result into the effect of a mentally disabled person’s identity
and social functions mediating the independent and the dependent variables, identity was found to
completely mediate the environmental factors of residence, general support and awareness of stigma, and
the practice of self-determination and the social functions were proved to partially mediate the support
by professionals and the practice of self-determination.
The implications of this study based on the analysis results can be summarized as follows. First, this
study supports the perspective of social constructivism with regard to the nature of disability. Second,
the ecological model on the relation between the environmental factors affecting the practice of
self-determination and self-determination ability was concluded to be the proper model to explain a mentally
disabled person’s practice of self-determination. Third, the study results prove that the two standpoints
on recovery can be appropriately combined through the ecological model of self-determination. In
conclusion, the study results show that the focus of the self-determination discourse needs to be shifted
from a mentally challenged person’s mental faculty to environmental factors.