| The purpose of the study was to identify essential factors of physical education programs for children with autism who are home schooled, as perceived by parents and Certified Adapted Physical Educators (CAPES). Perceived value of physical education as a home school subject, current physical education practices, and the use of professionals in the home school physical education program were also examined. Participants were parents in Texas who home schooled a child with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), ages 6 to 11 years, and CAPES in the State of Texas who had a minimum of one year experience teaching physical education to children with ASD.;Parents and CAPEs answered near-identical surveys regarding essential factors for physical education programs for children with ASD (r=.711). The instrument also contained a paired-comparison section regarding the value of physical education in relation to other subjects taught within the home school. Independent t-tests were performed on the parents' and CAPEs' responses for each of the 18 physical education program factors and revealed parents and CAPEs differed significantly in their perceived level of importance of essential factors of physical education programs for home schooled children with autism spectrum disorders. While parents indicated the most important factors were low student/teacher ratio and one-to-one instruction, CAPEs indicated the most important factors were establishing and maintaining routine for the child's physical activity and the amount of structure in the learning environment or home, related to physical education. However, both parents and CAPEs indicated that the level of competition in physical education activities was not important for children with autism who are home schooled.;In contrast to the significantly different perceived levels of importance of physical education program factors, parents and CAPEs both indicated physical education was an important subject within the home school for a child with autism. Not only was physical education ranked within the top four subjects for both parents and CAPEs, but was similarly high in importance to the other three top-ranked subjects (self-help skills, language arts, and mathematics). |
