The Use of Interprofessional Education (IPE) to Address Collaboration for Individualized Education Plans (IEPs): A Retrospective Study of Occupational Therapy, Speech-Language Pathology, and Special Education Students’ Perceptions

The purpose of this project is to measure the effects of interprofessional education (IPE) on the perceptions of preservice professionals’ development of an Individualized Education Plan (IEP). The preservice professionals (PSPs) participants included master’s students from speech language pathology (SLP), occupational therapy (OT) and special education (SPED) programs (N = 78). The primary project goals were to examine the perceptions of the participants’ roles and knowledge on a multidisciplinary education team, their perceptions of the collaborative process, and their familiarity with the IEP development process. A mixed-methods, retrospective, cross-sectional investigation was used to obtain quantitative and qualitative outcomes. A pre-workshop and post-workshop survey were used to collect the quantitative data. Qualitative data were collected via open-ended survey questions. Results demonstrated increased perceptions of knowledge as a result of the workshop across the three disciplines (OT: t(32) = -3.85, p \u3c 0.001; SLP: t(29) = -5.70,p \u3c 0.001; SPED: t(14) = -2.12, p = 0.02). Qualitative themes identified included increased confidence, collaboration, and preparedness to develop an IEP, and new understandings of roles and responsibilities among the participants