Individualized Education Programs (Ieps) and Barriers for Parents from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Backgrounds (Diversity and Special Education) (Report‪)‬

Over the past decade, parental involvement in the special education process has been an important topic for many researchers. The passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (PL 94-142) in 1975, and more recently the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (PL 101-476) in 1990 (IDEA), both recognized familial involvement and family-professional collaboration as indispensable to developing Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSPs) and Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) (Cho&Brenner, 2003). Amendments to the IDEA in 1997 (Public Law 105-17, 1997) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act in 2004 (Public Law 108-446) further improved parents' roles and increased their opportunities for participating in their children's education as a member of the IEP team. A fundamental provision of the amendments to IDEA requires school professionals to involve parents of students with disabilities in the educational decision-making process, and to incorporate parents' knowledge of their children in the planning and designing of their children's educational services (Kalyanpar, Harry,&Skrtic, 2000). Under these amendments, parents have become equal partners with school professionals when deciding the educational issues on behalf of their children. Since those legislative changes, a mounting body of literature has emphasized the positive impact of parents' involvement on children's success in school, and proposed diverse strategies to promote and facilitate the collaboration between families and educational professionals.