Discussing adapted physical education during IEP meetings: First‐hand parent experiences and a supporting tool

Physical education (PE) has long been neglected throughout the individualized education programme (IEP) process. Parents often feel unprepared to advocate for PE services within the IEP process. Aim: Thus, the purpose of this study was to outline the development of an advocacy checklist to help parents address PE within the IEP process and to examine parents’ experiences discussing PE during IEP meetings. A qualitative descriptive approach was used to drive interviews that were conducted with seven parents of children with visual impairments (VI). Three interrelated themes were constructed using an inductive category development approach: (1) ‘It’s [PE] basically a check mark, It’s, he was there. He didn’t go to sleep’, (2) ‘I’d say it’s [PE] one of our most important pieces… we believe in as a family’ and (3) ‘This is a perfect checklist of what they [IEP team] need to be going over’. The current study revealed multiple barriers that intervene with appropriate documentation of PE services during the IEP meeting. As voiced by the parents in this study, the checklist outlined in this study offers a practical and user‐friendly PE advocacy checklist to guide all parties on the IEP team towards making informed decisions regarding these services.