Parental involvement in the IEP process: A comparison of selected parental groups

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationships between parental attendance at IEP meetings and the following variables: handicap of the child, grade placement, length of time the child had been in a self-contained special education program, educational background of the parent, ethnicity, income level of the family, role perception of parents in decision making in the last IEP, and parents\u27 attitude toward home-school communication. A second purpose was to examine the relationship between the role perception in the last IEP conference and the length of time since the conference. A third purpose was to determine if active parental involvement in the IEP process resulted in higher numbers of objectives attained in the child\u27s IEP. Parents from a large Midwestern school district were surveyed, and school district records and IEP documents were examined. Parents of students from 81 classrooms participated in the study. The students were classified as learning disabled, behaviorally disordered, or educable mentally handicapped. Chi-squares were used to study the relationships. Results of the statistical tests were: (1) Parents whose children had learning disabilities attended IEP conferences more frequently than did parents whose children were educable mentally handicapped. Parents with higher educational levels attended more than did Black parents, and parents with higher income attended more than did parents with lower income. (2) Parents attended IEP conferences more frequently if they perceived themselves as active participants in the process and rated home-school communication as important. (3) In general, parents who had attended the IEP conference within three months remembered being more involved than did parents who had attended conferences more than three months ago. (4) Parents who indicated they were actively involved in the IEP process had IEP\u27s for their children with more objectives that were attained than did parents who were not involved in the process