Although many parents struggle to ensure that their children with disabilities receive appropriate educational services, Spanish speaking parents of children with disabilities especially face logistical and attitudinal obstacles in developing strong partnerships with the school as well as retaining needed services. Still further, families of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (versus other types of disabilities) are most likely to encounter conflicts with the school system. Using a randomized control trial, the purpose of this project is to examine the effectiveness of a Latino Parent Leader Support Project (LPLSP) in increasing empowerment, communication with the school, special education knowledge, student progress, quality of the family-school partnership, and satisfaction with services among Spanish-speaking, Latino parents of students with autism. We will also examine the effect of the training upon participation in Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings. We expect that each of the forty graduates of the LPLSP will support four additional Spanish-speaking families of children with autism. We will conduct pre and post surveys with these families to determine the effectiveness of the LPLSP graduate upon the families’ satisfaction with services, empowerment, and special education knowledge. Thus, in addition to the 40 LPLSP graduates, an additional 160 families will be served by this project.
Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC)
Autism Research Database (AFD)
