Family Perspective Interview and Summary Assignment
To gain perspective on the parents’ roles in working with a team of professionals, conduct an interview with the parents of a student with intensive special needs, behavioral issues, or any student on an IEP or 504. In asking a parent to participate in this interview, please explain that you are interested in understanding the parent perspective and recognizing and identifying collaborative opportunities and activities that are empowering and constructive for families.
A summary of this interview will include the following information:
- Background of the student (age, family information, disability, strengths, previous school experience)
- Description of successful collaborations of the family with school and community personnel
- Description of unsuccessful or unhelpful situations (including meetings) that involved family and school or community personnel.
- Your reflections on actions, systems, and opportunities that promoted successful collaborations. Which of these were promoted to achieve successful collaboration? Which of the obligations broke down?
- Identify ways that the family’s cultural background was considered or would have been considered to ensure successful collaboration.
- Summarize, analyze, and discuss the implications of the results of your interview.
- Describe what you have learned from hearing the parents’ story? How might this influence or affect your work with parents in the future?
This assignment must be submitted in typed format, with a cover page, and need not be longer than three pages in length. Please reference our course text, and videos, and properly cite in the works cited.
Family Perspective Interview and Summary Assignment
Background of the student (age, family information, disability, strengths, previous school experience)
This is the interview review of Aura, a kind-hearted small girl of 9 years old. She stays with her family and is an active student at Starkid School. Her mother is associated with an NGO where she works with children with disabilities and her father is an official clerk. However, Aura is suffering from Down Syndrome, since her birth. Here I would like to mention that her strengths are that she can recognize the different colors, shapes as well as alphabets. However, she finds it difficult to coordinate with friends, as when she sees that all her friends are actively playing, and is unable to play with them. Her parents mentioned that she has no improvement in her studies, because, she is unable to read an entire story. However, she loves painting and drawing the entire day. Her previous school teachers have mentioned that she used to try what was actually been taught in class, but she was unable to convey it to her peers or certainly, she was unable to respond to her peers.
Description of successful collaborations of the family with school and community personnel
Aura’s mother mentions the notion that she is never kept apart from her siblings. She loves playing with her small brother and actively participates in teaching him things. Her mother even mentions that even now she loves playing peek-a-boo and learning stories from YouTube channels. Thus, Aura’s mother mentioned that she kept on talking with her and often engages her with several works. I really liked the way she engages herself with several objects, events and telling stories to her. I really liked that her mother mentioned that, she is involving Aura with the speech therapist, who provides specific suggestions, based on the disabilities of her child. Thus, she mentions that Aura, after attending this speech therapist, gets detailed information based on a house program that has helped her child to speak up and keep on practicing speaking.
Description of unsuccessful or unhelpful situations (including meetings) that involved family and school or community personnel.
Children suffering from Down syndrome disabilities are often victims of delayed speech. As in the case of Aura, the same thing can be implemented. Apart from this, parents after receiving children with Down syndrome get shock, and fear over several things, and often take it as a challenge to raise the child. This is because of their developmental disabilities. She has a problem with language development. The most unhelpful situation which is faced by Aura’s family and especially her parents is teaching the right method to speak. Thus, Aura’s mother is learning various sign languages in order to enhance her daughter’s communication skills, so that the bridge which is created between her communicative language, can be enhanced with expressive and receptive languages. On the other hand, a serious health problem Aura has been facing is her heart defects. This is one of the biggest concerns of the family (Taylor et al. 1993).
Your reflections on actions, systems, and opportunities that promoted successful collaborations. Which of these were promoted to achieve successful collaboration? Which of the obligations broke down?
I would like to appreciate the action which is taken up by Aura’s mother being associated with NGOs and has the knowledge to collaborate with Down syndrome children. I really liked that system, of orienting Aura with a speech therapist, which is initiating her body language and developing her cognitive values. She is learning to read from textbooks, and doing the spelling on her own. A home tutor has been kept along with the speech therapist, who is responsible for taking good care of her language and making her practice how to speak properly. Thus, these can be regulated as an opportunity for Aura, in order to make development in her speech and learn the right method to speak up. Thus, as per my knowledge and after surveying Aura I could mention that these are some of the rightful collaborations taken up by Aura’s parents and family. I even find that her family is very attentive toward Aura ad supports her to build her education and develop her learning skills. Apart from this, Aura loves painting, so her parents often ask her to paint, which is like a reflection of her dream and her liking. After seeing her paint books, I have learned that Aura likes having Ice-cream, as she always draws popsicles, cones, or images of colorful ice-creams. Though she is having, heart defects, the doctor has asked her to reduce her weight, because, she is a bit obese. On the other hand, I would like to mention that her mother often takes Aura to educational programs in the community. The obligation is mainly based on her defective language as she is already 9 years old. Thus, her mother is doing so many things, but still, none of the things are getting mitigated.
Identify ways that the family’s cultural background was considered or would have been considered to ensure successful collaboration.
In the case of the family’s cultural background, I have realized that they ensure good education capabilities with speech therapies so that she can improve her speech and her body language. On the other hand, I have also understood that with the emphasis on the family cultural background has helped to develop proper communication, with gross motor skills as well developing the fine motor skills. Thus, Aura is trying to improve herself with all her defects as her family ensures successful collaboration with her.
Summarize, analyze, and discuss the implications of the results of your interview.
I faced several challenges while conducting the interview. Aura’s mother ad all the family members were individually interviewed by me, as they often felt tired talking with me, because of my language barrier. On the other hand, I really felt worse when they neglected my questions. On the other hand, I really liked that Aura’s mother take me to her educational program which is often conducted by her NGO where I get to see so many children suffering from Down syndrome have learned from this survey that Down syndrome children are born each year like fear to the parents, acts as a genetic condition with this birth defects. They often suffer from obesity and heart defects causing serious problems in their physical development.
Describe what you have learned from hearing the parents’ story. How might this influence or affect your work with parents in the future?
Initially while listening to Mrs. Smith, Aura’s mother, I felt pathetic, because initially, she explained that she admired that she will have a baby girl. On the other hand, she could not believe that she gave birth to a child with Down syndrome. He says that her husband, Mr. Smith helped her to grasp her confidence back in order to develop her daughter Aura. Another pathetic news was that I felt bad when I came to know that Aura is having obesity with heart defects.
Apart from this, I would like to mention the conversation with the parents of Aura, they were honest and very nice while they are talking. Thus, while surveying all the members of the family they often felt disturbed, because Aura, has times, which are divided into various phrases like her lunch, her snack time, her time to read, draw, and even her speech therapy class. On the other hand, my questionnaire consists of several questions, with which I could understand that they would not do any further interviews with me.
References
Dsagsl.org (2021). Supporting the Student with Down Syndrome in Your Classroom. Retrieved from https://dsagsl.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Supporting-the-Student-With-DS-Information-for-Teachers-2014new.pdf [Retrieved on 22nd November, 2021]
Taylor, G, Dobson, S, and Staves, L. (1993) Collaborative working practices in special schools. Down Syndrome Research and Practice, 1(2), 84-86. doi:10.3104/practice.17. Retrieved from https://library.down-syndrome.org/en-gb/research-practice/01/2/collaborative-working-practices-special-schools [Retrieved on 20th November, 2021]
