Adapted Physical Education (APE) is a sub-discipline of physical education. It is an individualized program created for students who require a specially designed program for more than 30 days. The program involves physical fitness, motor fitness, fundamental motor skills and patterns, aquatics skills, dance skills, individual, group games, and sports (including lifetime sports). For people with disabilities, adapted physical education provides safe, personally satisfying, and successful experiences related to physical activity, rather than a sedentary alternative program. Adapted Physical Education is a direct service, not a related service.
Students Who Receive Services
Students who qualify for adapted physical education include people with disabilities as specified in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This includes children who have:
Autism
Blindness
Deafness
Emotional Disturbance
This term also incluces schizophrenia.
Hearing Impairment
Mental Retardation
Multiple Disabilities
The term does not include deaf-blindness.
Orthopedic Impairment
Other Health Impairment
Specific Learning Disability
Disorders not included: learning problems that are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities, of mental retardation, of emotional disturbance, or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.
Speech or Language Impairment
Traumatic Brain Injury
The term does not apply to brain injuries that are congenital or degenerative, or to brain injuries induced by birth trauma.
Visual Impairment Including Blindness
This term includes both partial sight and blindness.
Infants and toddlers who need early intervention services because of developmental delays in cognitive, physical, communication, social, emotional or adaptive development can also qualify for adapted physical education. The state can chose to include infants and toddlers who are under three-years old who are “at risk” for experiencing a developmental delay if early intervention services are not provided.
Students who qualify under section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 can also receive adapted physical education. In section 504, a person with a disability is anyone who has a physical or mental impairment that limits one or more major life activities, has a record of impairment, or is regarded as having an impairment.
A fourth group of students who might qualify for adapted physical education are students who are recuperating from injuries, accidents, recovering from noncommunicable diseases, are overweight, have low skills levels, or have low levels of physical fitness. This group is not covered by legislation, but a school district can decide to develop a plan to meet these students’ physical education needs.
Examples of the impairments highlighted in the above two paragraphs include, but are not limited to: AIDS, alcoholism, blindess or visual impairment, cancer, deafness or hearing impairment, diabetes, drug addiction, heart disease, mental illness, and ADD/ADHD.
Adapted physical education serves people of all ages.
Laws
Some key laws that have been influential in the advancement of APE.
No Child Left Behind
Created in 2001, This act puts significant federal support behind the improvement of reading and mathematics scores and compromises other critical curricular areas, including physical education, health, history, art, computer science, and music
American with Disabilities Act (P.L. 101-336)
Created in 1990, The act expanded civil rights protections for individual with disabilities in the public and private sectors. ADA outlaws discrimination against a person with a disability in employment, public services and transportation, public accommodations, and telecommunications.
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
First created in 1990, but has been updated several times. In 1990, IDEA continued the emphasis upon FAPE, IEP, LRE, and physical education as a direct, educational service. In 1999, IDEA was reauthorized, the reauthorization emphasized education for learners with disabilities in the general education program and increased the emphasis on parental participation in the assessment and IEP process.
Education for All Handicapped Children Act (P.L. 94-142)
Created in 1975, the act mandated: (a) free appropriate public education (FAPE) for all children with disabilities between the ages of 3 and 21 years; (b) Individualized Education Plan; (c) education in the Least Restrictive Environment; and (d) physical education as a direct, educational service.
To ensure that every child with a disability receives an appropriate education, the Education of the Handicapped Act of 1975 mandated that an individual education program (IEP) be developed for each student with a disability that requires specialized instruction. The IEP should be the cornerstone of the students education. It should be the living, working document that the teacher and parents use as the basis for the instructional process.
Students with disabilities requiring only reasonable accommodation must have a written 504 plan. The student's disability and corresponding need for reasonable accommodation are identified and documented in the plan. All school staff involved in the provision of accommodations should be contacted by the 504 coordinator and made aware of their duties and responsibilities.
The Rehabilitation Act (P.L. 93-112, Section 504)
Created in 1973, The act mandated that individuals with disabilities cannot be excluded from any program or activity receiving federal funds solely on the basis of the disability.
Individual Education Program or IEP
Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) can be defined as a plan for each student, ages 3 to 21, that qualifies for adapted physical education based on an evaluation fo the student. All IEPs are outcome-orientated giving assurance that the student will benefit from special education and have real opportunities, full participation, indpendant living, and economic self-efficiency. IEPs are revised once a year by the team having mandatory review conferences have the principle reason of determining if the students annual goals are being acheived.
Information in an IEP Includes the Following
Purpose
Federal law mandates that each individual with a disability under IDEA have an IEP developed for him/her.
An IEP is a written statement for each SWD developed by a meeting with representatives from the local educational agency, the teacher, the parents or guardian, and the student, if appropriate, for the purpose of establishing an appropriate educational placement. Some consider the IEP to be a “management” program to guide appropriate service delivery, which includes the area of physical education. An IEP should include a statement of:
IEPs in Adapted Physical Education ensure that everyone is on the same page when educating an individual. People on this education team may include but not limited to the classroom teacher, general physical education teacher, parents, adapted physical education teacher, physical therapy, occupational therapist, and the student. Having an IEP makes sure all of these individuals are working towards the student’s goals. Assessing students helps determine placement of the student and where they are least restricted to work towards and accomplish their goals. IEPs are vital so that everyone is consciously working towards the student’s goals and not working on independent goals.
Steps in the assessment and IEP processes?
- Referral - Student can be referred by several sources for example: teacher, parent or administrator
- Screening - Response to Intervention (anytime before or after referral)
- If student passes screening everything stops. If they don't pass screening we continue on.
- Parent Permission: Depending on district this may be before or after the screening.
- 15 days to get the parents permission after the referral.
- Assessments: Formal Tests, Observations, and Conversations
- Formal Tests (norm and standardized): TGMD-2, BOT-2, CTAPE, and more. (Must be appropriate:age, developmentally, PE based)
- Conversations: talk with general physical educator, parent, classroom teacher, OT, PT, special educator, and student
- Observations: in the natural setting, student and teacher (Benefical to observe at least 3 times)
- Informal Tests (criterion): checklists, rubrics
- 60 days from when you receive your parents permission and is in the hands of the educator to do the assessments.
- Evaluation Meeting with IEP Team
- Develop IEP: Should be set by the time you leave the IEP meeting
- 30 days once the assessment is done to write the IEP
- Revisit every year
- Re-evaluate every 3
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