'American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD)'
Doi
Abstract
Families should be an active part of educational decision-making for their children and can be
particularly influential in advocating for inclusion for students with intellectual and
developmental disabilities. Yet, significant research has shown that parents do not feel schools
effectively collaborate with them. We interviewed 19 parents of children with disabilities to
investigate the ways they were included and excluded from educational decision-making, and
how they decided on their children’s placement and services. Five themes emerged: parents’
exclusion from decision-making, parents’ independent efforts to shape their children’s
educational services, parents’ decisions as a result of school and district factors, parents’ role
changes to direct their children’s education, and discrepancies between beliefs and experiences
of inclusion. Parents’ responses indicate that specific school structures and institutionalized
procedures may regularly exclude parents from decision-making. Results have implications for
parent-professional partnership during decision-making for students with disabilities and
personnel preparation