Analysis of the Preschool Individualized Education Planning Process: Current Practices and Directions.

This study examined the actual content of meetings concerning the development of Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) for preschool children with developmental delays or visual impairments. Meetings concerning a total of 23 children in each of three programs were examined. In this study, researchers recorded and transcribed preschool Individualized Education Program meetings, coding each utterance according to who was speaking and what was being discussed. Additionally, the IEP goals and objectives were also coded. on the same content parameters to compare goals to the actual meeting content. Findings indicated that discipline-specific team members contributed the most to discussions about their characteristic areas of expertise. The preschool teachers also talked a great deal in all content categories. At meetings with parents, the "other " category contained one fifth of all utterances, ostensibly in an effort to establish rapport with parents. Parents made the secon