FamilyConnect

Listen to Lauren Lieberman’s thoughts on the benefits of parent/professional collaboration.

Transcript

My name is Lauren Lieberman. I’m a professor of adapted physical education at SUNY-Brockport in Brockport, New York.

What do you believe are the benefits of a parent/professional collaboration related to the expanded core curriculum?

Sure, the benefits of a parent and professional collaboration related to the expanded core curriculum are, one, consistent exposure and experiences at home and in school because this consistent experience and exposure to recreation activities at home and in school—number one, it gives a consistent message to the peers, “This child can do any activity that you do.” Also, the siblings believe that that child can do anything that they do, and then they’ll include them in it, with the modifications, so that they’ll see the modifications.

Obviously, the child with the visual impairment if they’re included in everything, will expect to be included in all the activities, and so the parent/professional collaboration is just this expectation that whatever happens with the family, whatever happens in activities at school, will be an experience that that child will have with modifications in some instances.

Number two, the parents have to share the successes at home and in the summer with the teachers. For example, at my camp, we have an activity analysis checklist. So for every skill and or sport they do, there’s a checklist that says what they learned and how well they did it. How many times they did it. How far they did it. How fast they did it. This checklist comes back, and the parents get a copy, and the parents share a copy with the physical education teacher.

This kind of relationship and sharing of information is only going to help the knowledge of the physical education teacher and have the parents share the successes of the child. So it’s really a win-win if people take the time to do it.

And the third one is that to remember that everyone is working towards a common goal. It’s only when children with visual impairments, blindness, and deaf-blindness know how to participate in the same sports activities and recreation as their peers will they be truly self-determined.