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

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-
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