Exploring the Meaning of Parental Involvement in Physical Education for Students With Developmental Disabilities

Abstract

The purpose of this phenomenological inquiry was to explore the experiences and meaning of parental involvement in physical education from the perspectives of the parents of students with developmental disabilities. The stories of four mothers of elementary aged children (3 boys, 1 girl), two mothers and one couple (mother and father) of secondary-aged youth (1 girl, 2 boys) with developmental disabilities, were gathered by using interviews, photographs, school documents, and the researcher’s journal. Bronfenbrenner’s (2005) ecological system theory provided a conceptual framework to interpret the findings of this inquiry. Three themes emerged from thematic analysis: being an advocate for my child, understanding the big picture, and collaborative partnerships undeveloped in GPE. The findings lend additional support to the need for establishing collaborative partnerships in physical education between home and school environments (An & Goodwin, 2007; Tekin, 2011).

Inclusion Practices in Elementary Physical Education: A Social-cognitive Perspective

“…Teachers' accounts lend support to the previous literature that recognises the significance of home-school collaboration (An & Goodwin, 2007;An & Hodge, 2013). Teachers perceived that their relationships with other team members allowed them to develop better instruction in GPE programmes.…”

“…The teachers also viewed parents' support as an essential ingredient in their GPE programmes in order to include students with disabilities; however, they considered this a difficult task because they had limited interactions with the parents due to their absence from IEP meetings (An & Hodge, 2013). Thereby, they tended to communicate with special education teachers or APE teachers if they needed to obtain student information.…”

Parental perceptions of facilitators and barriers to physical activity for children with intellectual disabilities: A mixed methods systematic review

“…Qualitative data were extracted from nine studies (Alesi & Pepi, 2015;An & Hodge, 2013;Barr & Shields, 2011;Fidler, Lawson, & Hodapp, 2003;Grandisson, Tétreault, & Freeman, 2012;Mactavish & Schleien, 2004;Melbøe & Ytterhus (2017); Menear, 2007;Njelesani, Leckie, Drummond, & Cameron, 2015) and quantitative data extracted from two studies (Levinson & Reid, 1991;Fidler et al, 2003). Mactavish & Schleien (2004) also included quantitative data relating to the family, but data specific to children with ID could not be independently extracted, therefore quantitative data from this paper was not included.…”

“…Studies were conducted in Australia (Barr & Shields, 2011), Canada (Grandisson et al, 2012;Levinson & Reid, 1991), Italy (Alesi & Pepi, 2015), Norway (Melbøe & Ytterhus (2017), Trinidad and Tobago (Njelesani et al, 2015), and the USA (An & Hodge, 2013;Fidler et al, 2003;Mactavish & Schleien, 2004;Menear, 2007). Quality assessment scores and a full summary of each study is presented in Table 2. INSERT FIGURE 2 HERE…”

Fathers’ Importance in Adolescents’ Academic Achievement

“…Despite distinct categories of fathers in a variety of family dynamics, prior research studies often dichotomize father types into biological fathers versus stepfathers (e.g., Sweeney, 2007;Videon, 2004), or father presence versus father absence (e. g., Vogt Yuan & Hamilton, 2006). Many studies fail to investigate fathers' influence on children's academic outcomes, instead relying on mothers' involvement to model the effect of both parents (see An & Hodge, 2013;Lai & Vadeboncoeur, 2013: Monti, Pomerantz, & Roisman, 2014von Otter, 2014;Sheng, 2012). As family demographics continue to evolve, research into the various influences of different father types becomes more important.…”