Education and Training in Developmental Disabilities - Division on ...

educators. These educators were enrolled <strong>in</strong> a
master’s level course focus<strong>in</strong>g on teach<strong>in</strong>g
methods for children with Autism Spectrum
Disorder. All had teach<strong>in</strong>g or related service
experience <strong>in</strong> K-12 schools with the years of
experience rang<strong>in</strong>g from 1 to 31 (M 6.36
years). There were 19 females <strong>and</strong> 4 males <strong>in</strong>
this group with 82% report<strong>in</strong>g an ethnic background
of European American. Fourteen
were currently employed as special education
teachers, 2 were early childhood teachers, <strong>and</strong>
the rema<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g 4 worked <strong>in</strong> different educational
roles (e.g., SLP, school psychologist).
Once aga<strong>in</strong>, the second author collected data
<strong>and</strong> was not the course <strong>in</strong>structor. The same
data collection procedures were used with the
experienced teachers as had been used with
the pre-service teachers. The only difference
was that the movie <strong>and</strong> web page that the
experienced teachers viewed was on a child
who was five years old (i.e., a different child
than the pre-service teachers viewed). Similar
to the pre-service teachers, the practic<strong>in</strong>g
teachers reviewed several scrapbooks <strong>and</strong> had
the opportunity to ask questions before anonymously
complet<strong>in</strong>g Likert scale rat<strong>in</strong>gs of extent
of agreement with the 21 statements related
to the social validity of FAPs.
Data Analysis
Interviews. Parents’ <strong>in</strong>terviews were audio
taped <strong>and</strong> transcribed. Two faculty members
(first <strong>and</strong> second authors) <strong>and</strong> two undergraduate
students <strong>in</strong>dependently analyzed the
transcripts of the eight <strong>in</strong>terviews. The four
researchers met to discuss their analyses, <strong>and</strong>
came to consensus regard<strong>in</strong>g themes <strong>in</strong> each
<strong>in</strong>terview. After discuss<strong>in</strong>g <strong>and</strong> summariz<strong>in</strong>g
each <strong>in</strong>dividual transcript, the researchers
came to consensus on a summary of themes
across the participants. These f<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>gs were
organized <strong>in</strong>to three categories: (a) perceptions
related to the importance of the goals of
the FAPs, (b) perceptions related to the acceptability
of the procedures used to develop
the FAPs, <strong>and</strong> (c) perceptions related to the
outcomes <strong>and</strong> effectiveness of the FAPs.
Questionnaires. Data from questionnaires
were entered <strong>in</strong>to the Statistical Package for
the Social Sciences (SPSS 16.0 for Mac, 2007)
<strong>and</strong> descriptive statistics were generated for
each variable.
Results
Results from the data collection <strong>and</strong> data analysis
are presented accord<strong>in</strong>g to the three
groups of stakeholders (i.e., parents, FAP facilitators,
pre-service teachers, <strong>and</strong> experienced
educators) that participated <strong>in</strong> the
study.
Parents’ Perceptions
Parent <strong>in</strong>terviews. The parents who participated
<strong>in</strong> the project <strong>in</strong>dicated <strong>in</strong> their <strong>in</strong>terviews
that the FAP was an important tool for
families of children with disabilities (i.e., social
validity of the goals). Parents mentioned
that FAPs provided essential <strong>in</strong>formation
about their child (“what you see <strong>in</strong> the FAP is
what you get with my daughter”) <strong>and</strong> believed
FAPs could help educators to get to know
their child <strong>and</strong> guide them <strong>in</strong> their teach<strong>in</strong>g.
Parents believed the FAPs were useful especially
when the child transitions from one educational
sett<strong>in</strong>g to another (e.g., early <strong>in</strong>tervention
to school based services, one grade to
the next) or from work<strong>in</strong>g with one teacher/
therapist to a different one.
The parents felt that the FAPs were an important
tool for improv<strong>in</strong>g communication
<strong>and</strong> collaboration with school personnel, <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g
parents’ feel<strong>in</strong>g of empowerment
<strong>and</strong> provid<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>formation about their child
that could guide teach<strong>in</strong>g <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong>tervention
plans. Beyond the use of FAPs <strong>in</strong> an educational
sett<strong>in</strong>g, parents noted that FAPs were
useful <strong>in</strong> establish<strong>in</strong>g communication with
other professionals who provide services (e.g.,
therapists <strong>and</strong> physicians), family members,
<strong>and</strong> friends.
When asked about the social validity of the
procedures used to develop FAPs, parents <strong>in</strong>dicated
that creat<strong>in</strong>g FAPs required an <strong>in</strong>vestment
of time, but they felt that this time was
well spent <strong>and</strong> worthwhile because FAPs provided
them a means to make their voice
heard. It empowered them to communicate
comprehensive <strong>in</strong>formation about their child
that may have been difficult to accurately articulate
dur<strong>in</strong>g traditional <strong>in</strong>formation shar<strong>in</strong>g
opportunities such as IEP conferences.
Parents also <strong>in</strong>dicated that the process of creat<strong>in</strong>g
the FAPs was enjoyable.
Parents felt that support from professionals
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