The Individuals with Disabilities Educational Act (IDEA) is a national Act that makes certain that children with disabilities’ rights are enforced. Parents have a vital to play in their children’s education as guaranteed in the federal legislation. The IDEA Amendments of 1997 (Public Law 105-17) reinforced the IDEA program as well as the Education for the Handicapped Act (Public Law 94-142) (Knoblauch, n.d.). Therefore, this paper elucidates the different rights, roles, as well as responsibilities that parents with children with disabilities should execute so as to ensure smooth learning of their child.
Parents’ rights
The IDEA laws provide the parents with certain rights to participate in their child’s educational decision-making process. For instance, the education should be cost-free to the parent and should encompass all the educational requirements of the child (Knoblauch, n.d.). Secondly, the parent has a right to be always notified every time the school wants to conduct an evaluation on the child for potential special learning requirements, the child’s educational requirements changes, as well as the refusal of the parent’s appeal for reassessment or an adjustment in placement (Knoblauch, n.d.). Another right the parent is entitled to entail the ability to request for his or her child’s educational needs. In the case where the parent is not satisfied with the outcome of the school’s evaluation, he or she can conduct an independent assessment. Additionally, the parent has a right to provide voluntary informed consent for his or her child’s evaluation and is in a position to withdraw the consent at any time. Lastly, a parent has a right to participate in their child’s Individualized Education Program (IEP) or Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) by being involved in all IEP or IFSP team decisions as well as placements (Knoblauch, n.d.).
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Parent’s Role
For children with disabilities, a parent’s chief role is an active member of the IEP team since it is the body in charge of making educational decisions for the students (Logsdon, 2018).
Additionally, being an IEP member enables the monitor progress activities such as eligibility, evaluation, program development, and placement of the child with disabilities (National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities (NICHCY), n.d.). Therefore, the parents should not shy off since they play a crucial role in providing critical input about their children to the IEP team process because nobody knows their child more than them. Additionally, parents act as their children’s advocates. The parents are the most dedicated and concerned people who strive to see their kids succeed (Logsdon, 2018). These alone place the parent in a crucial position in the IEP team.
Parents' responsibilities
Each child’s disabling condition determines the parental responsibilities. That is why the parental responsibilities are slightly not as clear as the parental rights. However, each parent has a responsibility of developing a partnership with the child’s school and shares any information relevant to the child’s development and education (Knoblauch, n.d.). Secondly, each parent has a responsibility to seek clarification concerning any program unclear to them. Thirdly, the parent should ensure he or she clearly understands IFP and ISFP programs before committing themselves to sign it (Knoblauch, n.d.). Furthermore, the parent has the responsibility of discussing with the teacher how the child is going to participate in regular school activities such as physical education, music, art, recess, and lunch among others. Lastly, the parent should monitor the child’s development as well as occasionally request for reports and keep the records for a later reassessment.
Advocating for applied behaviour analysis
Applied behaviour analysis (ABA) is a technique used to evaluate and manage behaviour with the intention of impacting change. The key to improved progress is to identify and arrange more powerful ABA reinforcers, change learning materials, revise prompt formats, change prompt hierarchies, altering practice schedules, design subtly or substantially different strategies, and modify educator training(Groskreut, 2018).
References
Groskreut, M. (2018). What is Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA): Understanding the Misconceptions. Retrieved from https://www.southernct.edu/academics/schools/education/asd-center/What%20is%20ABA.pdf
Knoblauch, B. Rights and Responsibilities of Parents of Children with Disabilities. Retrieved from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/rights-and-responsibilities-parents-children-disabilities
Logsdon, A. (2018). Why Parents Have Such an Important Role in Special Education. Retrieved from https://www.verywellfamily.com/parental-importance-special-education-2162701
National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities (NICHCY). The Basic Special Education Process under IDEA 2004. Retrieved from https://www.parentcenterhub.org/wp-content/uploads/repo_items/10steps.pdf
