Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

This chapter describes how families of children with disabilities and accompanying challenging behavior are suitable beneficiaries of positive behavior support (PBS) under provisions of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Thus, the chapter's focus is threefold. First, what are IDEA's basic provisions that authorize families to be involved in their children's education? Second, what are IDEA's basic provisions that affect children who are suitable beneficiaries of PBS? Third, what is the relationship of the family-participation provisions of IDEA to the PBS provisions of IDEA, and what are the consequences of that relationship for families, service providers, and researchers? This chapter does not review the research on family-provider relationships, especially as they revolve around PBS. We have done that elsewhere and have concluded that, as a general rule, the IDEA legal authority for a partnership between families and professionals is less than optimally realized (Turnbull & Turnbull, 2001). Despite these findings, the fact remains that parents are more fully involved with schools and the education of their children than ever before, and the IDEA structure that made that result possible was strengthened by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997 (PL 105-17). Those two statements are cause for celebration. Yet, the new IDEA provisions for PBS put an extraordinary burden on parents. Parents need to understand IDEA, PBS, and the relationship between them as well as be prepared to act on that knowledge base. Parents also must invest extraordinary amounts of time, incur emotional stress when advocating for a new technology, and, perhaps, shoulder the legal expenses to secure PBS. Is the price too high for parents to pay? We think not. Even so, we continue to bemoan the fact that, as in the past, the burden of ensuring a free appropriate public education (FAPE) and using the newest technologies ultimately falls on parents (Turnbull & Turnbull, 2001). Nonetheless, as researchers into and users of positive behavioral interventions and supports, it is clear to us that PBS is worthy of hot pursuit by parents