SpEdTIPS: special education teams increasing parental satisfaction for IEP meetings

Abstract

Previous research has shown that parents of children receiving special education services often have negative feelings associated with Individual Education Plan (IEP) meetings, such as feeling confused, overwhelmed, intimidated, powerless, frustrated, and undervalued (Stoner et al., 2005; Ilik and Er, 2019; Mueller and Vick, 2019). Currently there is a culture of placing more weight on professional judgement and assessment data rather than on parental observations and knowledge of their child when making decisions for an IEP (Fish, 2008). Parents are intended, and required by law (IDEA, 2006), to be equal members of the IEP team. The current study developed and piloted an intervention used to increase parent satisfaction in IEP meetings, the SpEdTIPS intervention. This intervention focuses on action steps that can be implemented by case managers before, during, and after the IEP meeting to increase parents' positive experiences within IEP meetings. Results showed that case managers perceived parent satisfaction to increase from pre to post assessment, however, although parent ratings improved slightly, their ratings of satisfaction were not found to be statistically significant. Further investigation is needed on the individual components of the developed intervention and how parent satisfaction in IEP meetings is impacted.