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FAPs. They suggested develop<strong>in</strong>g clearer guidel<strong>in</strong>es for the parents related to what <strong>in</strong>formation to <strong>in</strong>clude. In addition, they suggested that giv<strong>in</strong>g parents specific timel<strong>in</strong>es for completion of certa<strong>in</strong> sections was needed, as the “open timel<strong>in</strong>e” encouraged procrast<strong>in</strong>ation. One respondent mentioned that the parents’ role was limited to provid<strong>in</strong>g the <strong>in</strong>formation, captur<strong>in</strong>g video footage, <strong>and</strong> provid<strong>in</strong>g reactions <strong>and</strong> critiques of drafts of different FAP components, <strong>and</strong> it would be better if parents were more <strong>in</strong>volved <strong>in</strong> the technical aspects of prepar<strong>in</strong>g FAPs. All of the professionals <strong>and</strong> university students who completed the facilitators’ questionnaire reported that they ga<strong>in</strong>ed new knowledge <strong>and</strong> skills about creat<strong>in</strong>g multimedia products. They also stated that they could not have created the FAPs if they were only provided equipment <strong>and</strong> written <strong>in</strong>structions at the start of the project. The assistance <strong>and</strong> guidance provided by a university faculty member (second author) <strong>and</strong> a university technology director were helpful <strong>and</strong> essential for develop<strong>in</strong>g FAPs. When asked if they will be able to create new FAPs <strong>in</strong> the future without any additional technical assistance, all but one person said yes. The FAP facilitators were very satisfied with the f<strong>in</strong>al product of the FAP. Although a few mentioned that the web-page is the least utilized component <strong>in</strong> the FAP, they felt that all components were important. When asked about ideas for chang<strong>in</strong>g the f<strong>in</strong>al product, the respondents reported the need to be able to update the <strong>in</strong>formation <strong>in</strong> the FAP. One person suggested giv<strong>in</strong>g parents work<strong>in</strong>g copies (Word <strong>and</strong> iMovie files) of all the products so they could update them when needed. In summary, the FAP facilitators felt that FAPs were essential for families <strong>and</strong> educators. They reported that the process def<strong>in</strong>itely required an <strong>in</strong>vestment of time <strong>and</strong> effort (especially <strong>in</strong>itially). They also <strong>in</strong>dicated acquir<strong>in</strong>g useful knowledge <strong>and</strong> skills while develop<strong>in</strong>g the FAPs, both <strong>in</strong> terms of technology <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong> terms of underst<strong>and</strong><strong>in</strong>g a child. They felt that the experience of develop<strong>in</strong>g at least one FAP with technical assistance <strong>and</strong> guidance prepared them to <strong>in</strong>dependently develop new FAPs <strong>in</strong> the future. 428 / <strong>Education</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Tra<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g</strong> <strong>in</strong> <strong>Developmental</strong> <strong>Disabilities</strong>-September 2009 Pre-Service <strong>and</strong> Experienced Teachers’ Perceptions To ga<strong>in</strong> a perspective on how “receiv<strong>in</strong>g teachers” might view FAPs, 43 pre-service teachers were surveyed along with 23 experienced educators. Although it would have been ideal to collect data from educators who actually received FAPs from parents, there is no reason to believe that the pre-service <strong>and</strong> experienced educators who provided completed questionnaires for this project are significantly different than educators who are currently work<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> K-12 schools. It is important to mention that the preservice <strong>and</strong> experienced educators completed the same questionnaire as parents, except for 5 items that were only on the parent survey. However, several items were worded slightly different on the two surveys to assure that parents were provid<strong>in</strong>g their impressions as “FAP senders” who had actually experienced shar<strong>in</strong>g a FAP <strong>and</strong> educators were provid<strong>in</strong>g their impressions as “FAP receivers” who were be<strong>in</strong>g asked to envision receiv<strong>in</strong>g a FAP on a new student. For example, on the parent questionnaire an item read “The FAP enhances positive home-school communication”. The parallel item on the educator questionnaire read, “The FAP could enhance home-school communication”. In another example, a negatively worded item on the parent questionnaire read, “The FAP does not help educators to know more about the child’s likes, dislikes, strengths, <strong>and</strong> needs” whereas the item on educator questionnaire was “The FAP did not help me to know more about the child’s likes, dislikes, strengths, <strong>and</strong> needs”. The f<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>gs from the pre-service <strong>and</strong> experienced educator questionnaires are shown <strong>in</strong> Tables 2 <strong>and</strong> 3. However, for ease of comparison <strong>and</strong> to conserve pr<strong>in</strong>t space, only the word<strong>in</strong>g from the parent questionnaire was shown. Data on Tables 2 <strong>and</strong> 3 reveal that educators had the same positive impressions toward FAPs as parents. After review<strong>in</strong>g the three components of the FAP, the majority of the educators agreed that the FAP is an important tool for families that could enhance positive home-school communication <strong>and</strong> is needed <strong>in</strong> the field of special education. Although the number of parents respond<strong>in</strong>g to the survey was small, it is <strong>in</strong>terest<strong>in</strong>g that educators were just as likely as the parents to believe that FAPs
could help a teacher better underst<strong>and</strong> a child <strong>and</strong> were slightly more likely than parents to believe that FAPs could help teachers better underst<strong>and</strong> a family’s values, beliefs, <strong>and</strong> educational priorities. Although the sample size of the parent group does not enable us<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>ferential statistics to compare mean scores between educators <strong>and</strong> parents, a cursory exam<strong>in</strong>ation of the f<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>gs <strong>in</strong> Tables 2 <strong>and</strong> 3 show that parents <strong>and</strong> educators were quite similar <strong>in</strong> their Likert scale rat<strong>in</strong>gs. In summary, the two groups of educators felt that FAPs were a viable tool. There were sections on the survey that allowed educators to ask questions <strong>and</strong> provide additional comments. It is noteworthy that many educators felt that FAPs could be beneficial for families with whom they currently work or may someday work, <strong>and</strong> they requested additional <strong>in</strong>formation about FAPs so they could consider us<strong>in</strong>g FAPs <strong>in</strong> the future. Although the responses from the participants were very positive overall, a few had constructive suggestions for improv<strong>in</strong>g the development of <strong>and</strong> the use of FAPs <strong>in</strong> the future. For example, one respondent felt that relatively too much <strong>in</strong>formation was provided on current skill level (i.e., th<strong>in</strong>gs the child could do) <strong>and</strong> relatively too little <strong>in</strong>formation was provided on educational priorities of the family. Also, educators were a bit wary of the time commitment required to create the materials. Discussion Data from this evaluation study supported the social validity of FAPs. The goals, procedures <strong>and</strong> outcomes of FAPs were reported by different stakeholders (i.e., parents, facilitators, <strong>and</strong> educators) to be socially important. FAPs can be considered to be a promis<strong>in</strong>g, <strong>in</strong>novative “best practice” <strong>in</strong> the fields of special education <strong>and</strong> developmental disabilities that early <strong>in</strong>tervention, early childhood special education, <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong>clusive education programs should be encouraged to try to implement. There are two limitations to this research study that are important to acknowledge. First, only a limited number of FAPs have been created <strong>and</strong> therefore the population of parents <strong>and</strong> FAP facilitators was small. It will be important to document the experiences <strong>and</strong> impressions of additional family members <strong>and</strong> FAP facilitators to determ<strong>in</strong>e the robustness of f<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>gs reported <strong>in</strong> this study. A second potential limitation is the possibility that because the project orig<strong>in</strong>ated <strong>in</strong> a university sett<strong>in</strong>g, <strong>in</strong>volved work<strong>in</strong>g with relatively novel multimedia software <strong>and</strong> materials, <strong>and</strong> provided parents as well as FAP facilitators some special opportunities, the parents <strong>and</strong> FAP facilitators may have been predisposed to evaluate the project positively. The university researchers <strong>in</strong>vested a considerable amount of time <strong>and</strong> effort with those <strong>in</strong>volved <strong>in</strong> the project, <strong>and</strong> despite requests for honest op<strong>in</strong>ions, people may have had reservations about provid<strong>in</strong>g anyth<strong>in</strong>g other than positive appraisals. Although provid<strong>in</strong>g socially desirable responses could be an alternative explanation for the f<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>gs from the FAP facilitators <strong>and</strong> the parents, it is less likely that the pre-service <strong>and</strong> experienced educators would have been <strong>in</strong>cl<strong>in</strong>ed to provide anyth<strong>in</strong>g less than their frank op<strong>in</strong>ions. However, it is not <strong>in</strong>conceivable that even some of these respondents would be predisposed to be supportive of a project that faculty members from their university had <strong>in</strong>itiated. To offset these potential confound<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>fluences, <strong>in</strong>dividuals who have no connection to those <strong>in</strong>volved <strong>in</strong> creat<strong>in</strong>g the materials should conduct future studies. There are important implications for both research <strong>and</strong> practice from this study. Further research on the potential benefits as well as implementation challenges is needed. One important f<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>g from this study is how capable the FAP facilitators became with the technological applications <strong>in</strong> a relatively short time. Although they reported <strong>in</strong>vest<strong>in</strong>g considerable time <strong>and</strong> effort <strong>in</strong>to mak<strong>in</strong>g the materials, when asked if they will be able to create new FAPs <strong>in</strong> the future without any additional technical assistance all but one person said yes. Based on the experiences of this project, it appears that educators can acquire competencies needed to develop high quality multimedia products if provided access to equipment <strong>and</strong> “h<strong>and</strong>s-on” tra<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g. One FAP facilitator’s comment was especially important <strong>in</strong> terms of the feasibility of implement<strong>in</strong>g FAPs on a large-scale basis. Although this respondent was pleased that she had learned useful new technology skills, felt that “it was wonderful how the staff <strong>and</strong> fam- Family Assessment Portfolios / 429
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Education
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Education
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Education
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Best Practices in
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plication facts to middle school st
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Multiculturalism, Religion, <strong
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disability that are conveyed throug
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the rest of society until acted upo
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abilities as an opportunity for spi
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ability and qualit
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TABLE 1 Dolly Gray Children’s Lit
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who did not clearly have a developm
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TABLE 3 Juvenile Literature with Ma
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TABLE 5 Characterizations i
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drome in The Duche
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Special Olympics). Most of the recr
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“add depth and m
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Gresham, Kern, Barreras, Thornton,
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number of cases of sin</str
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TABLE 1 Continued
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TABLE 1 Continued
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TABLE 1 Continued
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TABLE 2 Continued
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TABLE 2 Continued
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TABLE 2 Continued
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TABLE 2 Continued
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Target Behaviors A number of social
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to promote social skills in
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*Hine, J. F., & Wo
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Learn by Doing: A
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implemented is consistent across pe
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concludes the program with an empha
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TABLE 2 Scholar Pretest Directions:
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dren with autism. If, through these
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classroom. This program not only ga
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tism and Other <st
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Typically students with low IQs, <s
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applied the vocabulary word to a gi
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Jacob, Carl, and R
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ting them apart. J
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cannot provide this type of <strong
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Pentop Computers as Tools for Teach
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Okolo, & Courtad, 2007). Smart toys
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computer for all multiplication pro
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software immediately repeated the n
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tool. Prior to the in</stro
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Page 129 and 130: TABLE 2 Book Adaptations Book Dirty
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Page 139 and 140: TABLE 1 Characteristics of children
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