(by Bullock, C. C., Therapeutic Recreation in Special Education. The Parent Training Guide to Recreation. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina, Center for Recreation and Disabilities Studies.)

Few state and local education agencies include recreation as a related service in their Comprehensive System of Personnel Development administrative codes or training objectives, or on a student's IEP form. Without the need for recreation services being addressed through these processes, it is impossible for children with handicapping conditions to receive appropriate and necessary recreation services as part of their education. Studies by Ellis (1978), Coyne (1981), Stanley (1981). Coyne (1984), and Bullock (1985) indicate that recreation as a related service is seldom being used to enhance the total education of handicapped children.

Bedini and Morris (1987) surveyed a sample of teachers of exceptional children in North Carolina regarding recreation as a related service. Only 10% of the 270 respondents indicated that they requested recreation as a related service on the IEPs of their student's. Recreation as a related service is rarely made available because many education and related services personnel are not aware of the role of recreation and its contributions in the educational process for students with handicapping conditions. It is often seen as a frill and unaffordable. The challenge is to make parents and teachers more aware of the role of recreation and its contributions to the educational process.

No one denies that recreation has an enhancing effect on all the major domains of development-- psychomotor, social/affective, and higher order cognitive processes. There is little question that all students can benefit from the availability of these services. In fact, the National Advisory Committee on the Handicapped noted in its 1977 annual report, "It seems clear that no IEP can be considered complete unless it takes into consideration the handicapped child's special need for training and guidance in physical education and recreation, and the constructive use of leisure time. Few classroom teachers are equipped, however, even to evaluate such components, much less to help formulate them. The apparent alternative is to seek counsel from members of the school staff who have had professional training in these areas." The same principle was reaffirmed by Certo, Haring, and York (1984, p. 247): "No IEP should be considered even minimally acceptable unless it contains an ILP (individualized leisure program) component that addresses both immediate and longitudinal, comprehensive recreation and leisure needs in representative proportions. In a survey (Holloran, et al., 1986) well over 60% of the respondents indicated that greater emphasis should be placed on recreational and leisure service needs as an integral component of community life. Ms. Patti Smith, deputy assistant secretary of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services, and parent of a disabled child, once stated "Recreation is often a parent's number 1 issue."

Yet, despite repeated affirmations of the importance of this related service, recreation or therapeutic recreation is not being implemented as a related service to enhance special education. As a result, the issue was taken to the courts. In 1980 the first due process hearing establishing therapeutic recreation services as an allowable and appropriate inclusion in an IEP, Sandra T. vs. Old Rochester Regional School District (Massachusetts), could have paved the way for increased inclusion of recreation as a related service. It didn't! The decision was positive and allowed the previously denied therapeutic recreation services. However, the decision did not lead other school systems in Massachusetts or any other state to push harder for the inclusion of recreation as a related service into IEPs. Nearly eight years later, a resurgence of similar litigation and threats of litigation were being pursued in Ohio, Georgia, and other states to include this often overlooked related service provision.

What Must be Done?

In order to deliver recreation and leisure services to special education students, a series of interrelated processes must be accomplished:

1. Increasing educators' and parents' awareness of the potential contributions of recreation by providing in-service training.
2. Bridging assessment for recreation with already existing comprehensive pupil assessment procedures in order to determine which special students need which specific recreation services.
3. Implementing recreation and leisure services through the vehicle of the Individualized Education Program.
4. Identifying and employing certified therapeutic recreation specialists as the 'qualified personnel' to deliver recreation as a related service and/or to assist school personnel (as consultants) in the delivery of services.
5. The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services, U.S. Department of Education, and state education agencies must monitor recreation as a related service to ensure that it is being implemented adequately and appropriately.
 
 
 
 

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