Based on the paper by Sammy J. Spann, Frank W. Kohler, and Delann Soenksen

This research was focused on families who have children with autism. These families participated in phone interviews and answered 15 questions from three major categories. The categories were 1. Communication with school personnel, 2. Questions about their child's IEP. and 3. Priorities and satisfaction with school personnel and services.

57 parents from six different counties responded to the request to participate in the research. After families were involved in a 40 - 60 minute phone interview, procedures were taken to ensure accuracy and validity of findings. After this process, 45 families responses were used in the final data analysis.

51% of families stated that they had daily communication from the school.
31% stated to have communication between 1 and 3 times a week.

Most of the contact was stated to be with either the para-professional or the specials education teacher.

The second most frequent came from Speech Therapists, Occupational Therapists, or Physical Therapists.
The principal had the least percentage at 13%. There was almost no mention of the typical education teachers making contact.

Seventy-eight percent of parents believed they had high to moderate knowledge of the IEP document.

As far as involvement is concerned, 33% felt like they had high levels of involvement, 56% felt they had moderate levels, and 11% felt like they had very low levels of involvement in developing their child's IEP.

Parents of children in the two youngest groups of this study had the highest reported rates of involvement. Conversely, parents of children in the oldest two groups had the lowest feeling of involvement in the IEP process.

Parents rated Social Interactions, Communication Skills, as well as Life Skills as their highest priorities for their children.

44% of families rated schools as doing little or nothing to address their priorities.
29% stated that the school was expending moderate efforts towards these priorities. And 27% felt the school was expending high levels of effort.

When looked at by age groups, 83% of the families of the oldest group, felt that the schools were doing little to nothing to address their child's needs.

In all three major areas covered by the interviews, there was a noticeable difference of favorable opinions and the age group of their child.

Parents of younger children seemed to report higher levels of satisfaction, more frequent communication, and more efforts to meet the student's needs (parent's stated priorities).

The authors noted the need for more research into the differences found in parent perceptions and student ages. They remarked about possible qualitative differences in teachers at the earlier years and those of older students. They also speculated about the effects of the amount of time a parent has spent trying to gain assistance for their child and their perceptions.

On a personal note, I believe that there is another area to be investigated for these differences. The main emphasis of educators of small children is on development of skills in all areas: socially, mentally, communication/verbally, and academically. As students move into middle and high school, the emphasis is on technical and data driven results for their subject area, and no longer on the child as a whole person. In elementary schools, science /social studies were hands on, active, and included social skills, not standards driven. Kids with disabilities were able to be mainstreamed with less noticeable differences. Once teachers specialize into different areas, there are no more "social" based classes.