Barnard-Brak Et Al 15-3

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Authors

Correspondence

Keywords

Individualized EducationProgram,IEP,autism,parents,satisfaction

[email protected]

Lucy Barnard-Brak,Tonya Davis,Julie K. Ivey,David Thomson

Baylor University,

Waco, TX

Student IEP Participation andParental Satisfaction Among

Adolescents with Autism

Abstract

A students Individualized Education Program (IEP) has a directimpact on the development of curricular and instructional ser-vices for students receiving special educational services acrossthe United States. Parents of students with autism and otherdisabilities often perceive a disconnect between those services

provided by the school and what they perceive that their studentneeds in order to be successful in life. The purpose of the currentstudy was to examine the association of student IEP participa-tion with parental satisfaction among adolescents with autism.Results indicate higher levels of parental satisfaction when theirstudent with autism participated in the IEP process.

In the past 60 years, autism has progressed from a rare diag-nosis to a condition increasing in prevalence and demandingattention regarding educational programs. The fourth editionof the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,published by the American Psychiatric Association (1994),records the prevalence of reported rates of autism as two totwenty cases per ten thousand individuals at the time of itspublication. Current survey and research efforts estimatethat, at present, one in 150 children have a condition on theautism spectrum (Kuehn, 2007). Whether due to changes indiagnostic criteria, increased awareness, or other factors, thenumber of cases of children diagnosed with autism spectrum

disorders is rising. One must acknowledge that the num-ber of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disordersis increasing at a rate that deserves further considerationaddressing special education services.

According to the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs(2006), over 200,000 individuals with autism, ages 6 to 12years old, received special education services in the UnitedStates. As established in the Education for All HandicappedChildren Act of 1975 (Public Law 94142), each of these stu-dents with autism receiving special education services arerequired to have an annual individualized education pro-gram (IEP). IEPs include, among many things, the goals and

objectives for that student receiving special education ser-vices. Furthermore, IEPs play an important role in the devel-opment of the curricular and instructional services that areprovided, including those services that are not provided to astudent with a disability.

As such, the IEP is developed as a product of an annual meet-ing among parents, teachers, other stakeholders, and often,the student. The Education for All Handicapped Children Act


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IEP and Parent Satisfaction 49of 1975 (Public Law 94-142) requires that stu-dents with disabilities should participate in theIEP meeting, when appropriate. Furthermore,the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act(IDEA) 1997 added the assurance that older stu-dents participate in at least some part of their IEP

meetings. IDEA states that students 14 years andolder must be invited to attend their IEP meet-ings if transition services are to be discussed.Moreover, this same federal legislation has alsomandated that IEP decisions must reflect studentinterests and preferences, and that these interestsshould serve to develop a plan for transition ser-vices. From this, student involvement in the IEPprocess would appear to be desirable to success-fully plan and deliver special education servicesthat are student-centered.

The inclusion of the student in the IEP meeting

process not only fulfills legal mandates, but canalso be thought of as serving a larger psycho-social need, the promotion of self-determinationamong students with disabilities. According toWehmeyer (1996), self-determination is actingas the primary causal agent in ones life andmaking choices and decisions regarding onesquality of life free from undue external influenceor interference (p. 24). According to Skouge,Kelly, Roberts, Leake, and Stodden (2007), self-determination encompasses many behaviours,including setting ones own goals, planning lifetransitions, and envisioning ones future life.

Self-advocacy skills appear to be acknowledgedas a key component to achieving self-determi-nation among students with disabilities (Thoma,Nathanson, Baker, & Tamura, 2001; Wehmeyer,1998). As such, these self-advocacy skills canfacilitate the development of self-determinedbehaviour, which has been associated with posi-tive experiences and outcomes for students withdisabilities (Wehmeyer, 1998). Students who areself-determined should ostensibly be better ableto self-advocate for their needs and wishes intheir future adult lives.

Although the legal mandates and researchregarding self-determination clearly identifythe importance of student participation in theIEP process, research has indicated that schoolsare not necessarily in compliance with thesemandates. For example, although legally man-dated, Williams and OLeary (2000) found thatone-third of schools did not invite students toIEP meetings. Furthermore, 26% of the statesdid not take measures to ensure that students

interests were taken into consideration duringIEP development. Additionally, Defur, Getzel,& Kregel (1994) reviewed transition plans, find-ing that less than half of the students attendedtheir IEP meetings. Furthermore, after review-ing IEPS for students ages 1622 years, Powers

and colleagues (2005) found that while 76% ofthe IEPs were signed by the student, only 5%had evidence of student involvement in careerplanning. This is consistent with the findingsof Thoma et al. (2001) who also found that stu-dents were physically present in IEP meetings,but not actively involved in the IEP construction.These results suggest that student interests werenot consistently appreciated and therefore, goalselection was not related to student interest.

Powers and colleagues (2005) found that studentIEP involvement appeared to be particularly

problematic for students with developmentaldisabilities, such as autism, as compared to stu-dents with other disabilities. Specifically, stu-dents with developmental disabilities were lesslikely to attend their IEP meetings than studentswith learning disabilities, physical disabilities,or emotional disturbances. Additionally, Poweret al. found that students with developmentaldisabilities were less likely to be placed in jobsconsistent with their employment aspirations.Rather, in their study, Power et al. found thatstudents with developmental disabilities weremore likely to be placed in stereotypical work

experiences.

We posit that improving student involvementin the IEP process may not only serve to offercompliance to legislative mandates and per-mit the student to practice the skills of self-determination, but also improve parent satis-faction with their childs education, mainly bystrengthening the connection between schoolservices and the childs needs. In fact, research-ers have found that many parents of childrenwith autism are not satisfied with their childseducational goals and services, often citing a

disconnect between school and home perspec-tives. For example, Kohler (1999) conducted asurvey of parents of children with autism. Hereported that more than half of the parentsclaimed that school services were ineffective orunrelated to their childs most pressing needs.Additionally, Spann, Kohler, and Soeksen (2003)found similar results; in fact, 44% of parents ofchildren with autism felt that schools were notaddressing their childs most significant needs.


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50 BarnarD-BraKetal.

Moreover, Whitaker (2007) found that communi-cation between the home and school was relatedto parent satisfaction among parents of childrenwith autism. Furthermore, Grigal, Neubert,Moon, and Graham (2003) found that parentsconsidered student participation in IEP meetings

to be important and beneficial. In other words, itis possible that improving student involvementin the IEP meetings may improve the connectionbetween school services and the childs needsthereby improving parent satisfaction, not onlywith the IEP meeting, but with special educationservices in general.

Strengthening this connection between schoolservices and the childs needs would appearto improve parental satisfaction, not only withthe IEP process, but with special education ser-vices in general. The purpose of this study was

to examine the association of student IEP par-ticipation with parental satisfaction among ado-lescents with autism. To achieve the purpose ofthis study, we examined the relationship of stu-dent IEP participation among adolescents withautism on two, independent measures of paren-tal satisfaction. Specifically, the research ques-tion in this study examines how the relationshipof student IEP participation among adolescentswith autism is associated with parental satisfac-tion with both the IEP process and the school.Parental satisfaction measures included paren-tal satisfaction with the IEP process along with

their overall satisfaction with the school.

Method

Participants

The National Longitudinal Transition Study-2(NLTS-2) is a nationally-representative studythat examined adolescents with disabilitiesinto adulthood. Approval by a human subjectsresearch ethics board was not required as all

data were obtained from an archival data setcollected as part of the NLTS-2. The NLTS-2consists of a sample of approximately 11,000adolescents receiving special education serviceswho were ages 13 through 16 as of the year 2000to participate in the first and subsequent wavesof the study. For the purpose of our study, weutilized data collected as part of the first waveof the NLTS-2. The age ranged from 161 monthsold(13.42yearsold)to214monthsold(17.83

yearsold)withameanof187monthsold(15.58 years old) (SD = 13.87 months). This agerange reflects the ages of participants in the firstwave of the NLTS-2, which was utilized in thecurrent study. The NLTS-2 contains some 1,019adolescents with autism spectrum disorders,

which comprises approximately 11.1% of thetotal sample.Of these adolescents with autism,approximately 16.9% (n = 172) were identifiedas female while 83.1% (n = 847) were male. Theethnic distribution was approximately 67.9%(n = 687) were White followed by 12.1% (n = 123)were Hispanic or Latino, while 25.5% (n = 258)were African American, 4.1% (n = 42), and 2.0%(n = 20) were Native American. According todocumentation for the NLTS-2, bias in the sam-ple is not a significant issue. The process usedto ensure a representative sample is available(Javitz & Wagner, 2005). The random sampling

for this study was done from a nationally repre-sentative sample, stratified to be representativeof geography, district enrollment, and commu-nity/district wealth. Many of the variables arethereby controlled, resulting in a relatively highinternal validity.

Measures

All variables were obtained from the first waveof the NLTS-2. The independent variable of stu-dent IEP participation consisted of a dichoto-mous, yes/no response format. The two depen-dent variables were parent satisfaction withthe IEP process and special education services(M= 13.40, SD = 2.95) as well as parent over-all school satisfaction (M = 14.10, SD = 2.65).Further information regarding the psycho-metric and other methodological properties ofthese measures of parental satisfaction, as con-structed by SRI International, may be obtainedfrom the NLTS-2 website (NLTS-2, 2009) alongwith complete copies of the instrumentation(SRI International, 2000). We controlled forcommunication skills in predicting student IEP

participation among adolescents with autism.To achieve this statistical control, the variableof how well a student is reported to commu-nicate was utilized. This communication skillsvariable was measured from parental responsealong a semi-continuous, four-point scale, rang-ing from: student does not communicate at all,a little trouble communicating, a lot of troublecommunicating, and no trouble communicat-ing at all.


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IEP and Parent Satisfaction 51

Procedure

Analyses were performed in MPlus (v. 5.10;Muthn & Muthn, 2008). With advances inpath analysis and structural equation model-ing techniques, MPlus, a statistical software

package, permits analyses to be conductedwith dichotomous response items based uponthe development of methods of estimations thatcan handle categorical variables. Missing datafor scores were analyzed using full informationmaximum-likelihood (FIML) as the method ofestimation. Weights were employed in MPlus (v.5.10) to produce accurate population estimatesbased upon sample characteristics by account-ing for sampling errors due to random discrep-ancies between the true population and sampleachieved.

Analysis

As all variables were observed, path analysismodels were performed to achieve our purposewhile controlling for how well a student com-municates. In performing our analyses, fourstatistics reflecting fit were reported: the chi-square (2) test statistic; the root mean squareerror of approximation (RMSEA); the TuckerLewis Index (TLI), also known as the NonNormed Fit Index (NNFI); and the Comparative

Fit Index (CFI) as appropriate. No post hocmodel modifications were made.

Results

In evaluating model fit, the chi-square good-ness-of-fit statistic was not significant, indicat-ing that the data may fit the model, 2(2) = 1.992,

p = .37. The RMSEA compensating for the effectsof model complexity was 0.006, which accord-ing to Browne and Cudek (1993), indicates anacceptable fit of the model being less than orclose to 0.05. A value of 0.986 for the TLI anda value of 0.966 for the CFI were achieved. Huand Bentler (1999) note that fit index values of.95 (or better) are indicative of good fit. Figure 1contains the path diagram for the associationbetween student IEP participation with parent

IEP satisfaction and parent satisfaction with theschool among adolescents with autism.

After establishing model fit, the model can thenbe examined with respect to individual path val-ues. A path coefficient value provides an estimateof the magnitude of hypothesized effects, whichcan be interpreted like a correlation value asthey are standardized coefficients derived fromcovariance matrix analyses. In performing ouranalyses, we statistically controlled for how wella student was reported to communicate in influ-

Parent

Satisfactionwith School

.375*

* p < .05** p < .01*** p < .001

How wellstudent

communicates

StudentIEP

Participation

.231**

Parent

Satisfactionwith IEP

.855**

.265*

Figure 1. Student IEP Participation and Parental Satisfaction


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encing IEP participation among adolescents withautism. These communication skills appeared tobe significantly associated with IEP participationamong adolescents with autism with a standard-ized path coefficient value of .231. In evaluatingthe rest of the paths, student IEP participation

among adolescents with autism appeared to besignificantly associated with parent satisfactionwith the IEP process along with overall satisfac-tion with the school. The relationship betweenstudent IEP participation and parent satisfactionwith the IEP process was moderate and positivewith a significant standardized path coefficientvalue of .375. This result indicates that as stu-dent IEP participation increases among adoles-cents with autism, parents are significantly morelikely to be satisfied with the IEP process. Whilethe relationship between student IEP participa-tion and parent overall school satisfaction was

positive and significant, this relationship wasnot as strong as the relationship between studentIEP participation and parent satisfaction withthe IEP process with a significant standardizedpath coefficient value of .265. However, there asa strong, positive association between parent sat-isfaction with the IEP process and their satisfac-tion with the school as a whole with a significantstandardized path coefficient value of .855.

Discussion

The results of the current study indicate howstudent IEP participation among adolescentswith autism is positively associated with paren-tal satisfaction with both the IEP process andwith the school. Interestingly, the results of thecurrent study also indicate a moderate, statisti-cally significant association between the abil-ity of a student to communicate as rated byparents and student IEP participation. As wehypothesized this relationship between com-munication skills and student IEP participationfor adolescents with autism, we statisticallycontrolled for the influence of this variable inour analysis. The strongest association wasfound to be between parental satisfaction withthe IEP process and overall satisfaction withthe school. For students with autism, there is avital contact that occurs with school personnelat their IEP meetings. In fact, IEP meetings areactually intended to guide the majority of theschool experience in terms of curricular goalsand objectives.

Additionally, there was a positive, statisti-cally significant relationship between studentparticipation in the IEP process and parentalsatisfaction with the IEP process. As studentswith autism were more likely to participate inthe IEP process, parents were more likely to

have higher levels of satisfaction with the IEPprocess. There was also a positive, statisticallysignificant relationship student participation inthe IEP process and parental satisfaction withthe school as a whole. As students with autismwere more likely to participate in the IEP pro-cess, parents were more likely to have higherlevels of satisfaction with the school as a whole.In this sense, school personnel can not onlyimprove outcomes and experiences for studentswith autism by including them in the IEP pro-cess, but they can also improve parental levelsof satisfaction with the IEP process and the

school as a whole. Indeed, this parental level ofsatisfaction with the IEP process and the schoolas a whole appear to be highly correlated witha standardized path coefficient value of .855. Inour analyses, we tested the directionality of thisrelationship as indicated by Figure 1. While ourresults suggest support for the current model,we should note that other models may be justas applicable. For example, parents who may besatisfied with their childs school and IEP pro-cess may encourage their child to participate inthe IEP process.

In examining a sample of preschoolers withautism, Bitterman, Daley, Misra, Carlson, andMarkowitz (2008) indicated that parental sat-isfaction was similar to that of children withdisabilities other than autism. Among pre-schoolers with autism, Bitterman et al. note theimportance of parental satisfaction, as it maypossibly reduce the origins of school-parentconflict. We suggest this possible benefit ofimproving parental satisfaction through stu-dent IEP participation may be transferable inconsidering adolescents with autism. Parentalsatisfaction may be even more highly associatedwith student IEP participation in adolescencegiven that their children are developing intoyoung adults, an often anticipated, but anxiety-inducing milestone for parents of children withdisabilities. The inclusion of adolescents withautism into the planning and implementationof their services associated with the IEP pro-cess would appear to be particularly relevantfor parents as their adolescents are transition-


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IEP and Parent Satisfaction 53ing into adulthood. As such, adulthood accom-panies with it adult decisions that require anindividual to fully participate and act autono-mously. Additionally, as data were collected aspart of the NLTS-2, the results may be consid-ered highly generalizable.

Once the relationship between student partici-pation and satisfaction has been established, thetask is how to increase the two. Miles-Bonart(2002) investigated variables that increased sat-isfaction with IEPs. These included attendanceof proper personnel, communication, and useof proper etiquette and procedures. In orderto encourage student participation in the IEP,adolescents should have familiar faces in atten-dance. The personnel involved must be trainedto interact with both the parents and the stu-dent. This includes knowledge about using

everyday language instead of technical jargon.In addition, the surroundings must be comfort-able. Furthermore, parents and students withno experience with IEPs should be allowedextra time and explanations.

As with any large study there are limitations ofunknown factors relating to the subjects. Pastexperiences influence perceptions or expecta-tions of parents as they enter a room with teach-ers and administrators. Any negative aspect ofthe procedure could affect whether or not theparents approves of the childs participation.

The results of the current study would appearto provide information to schools and relevantpersonnel as to how inclusive efforts such asstudent IEP participation may be associatedwith higher levels of parental satisfaction.

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Barnard-Brak Et Al 15-3