Establishment of PL 94-142 guarantees children with disabilities free and appropriate public education that includes special education and related services, e.g. physical education (PE). According to Lieberman and Houston-Wilson (2002), PE teachers felt they were not prepared to teach in an inclusive setting. Therefore, this study investigated the preparedness and perceptions of current PE teachers who instruct children with disabilities in a PE setting.
Method:
Seventy-five PE teachers from the southern United States completed on-line surveys concerning their adapted PE preparation and experiences. Besides demographics, teachers rated on 9-point scales their undergrad experiences (not prepared at all to very well prepared), their difficulty in including students with disabilities in their classes (not difficult to very difficult), and barriers that might affect inclusion (no barrier to extreme barrier).
Analysis/Results:
Descriptive statistics showed that 68% taught either elementary or a combination of elementary and secondary PE. Fifty-two percent had no field experiences in adapted PE prior to student teaching, and only 41% taught students with disabilities during student teaching. Thirty percent had no undergraduate class in adapted PE. However, most teachers (89%) currently have students with disabilities in their classes, with 90% of those classes being fully included. Surprisingly, 45% of the teachers were never involved in IEP’s while another 30% were involved only some of the time. Also, only 47% reported that aides were present during PE class. The two most frequently encountered disabilities were autism and learning disabilities. Interestingly, teachers felt that their undergrad classes and field experiences were least adequate for teaching children with autism; 50% felt that their field experiences did not prepare them at all, while 38% felt that their classwork did not prepare them at all for instructing children with autism. Consequently, teachers reported that children with autism (M = 5.67) presented the most difficulty to include in class; children with learning disabilities (M= 2.97) were perceived as easiest to include. The greatest barrier to teaching students with disabilities was large class sizes (M = 6.42) followed by limited adaptive equipment (M = 4.97).
Conclusions:
With an increasing number of children being diagnosed with autism, undergraduate teaching preparation needs to include ample instruction and experiences to insure that teachers feel prepared and confident. Further, administrators need to understand the problems teachers encounter and react appropriately by providing additional resources and limiting class sizes to facilitate better instruction.