At the end of my last blog “The Need to have Adaptive Physical Education in the School Systems”, I ended by giving a brief introduction to APENS. Federal law mandates free and appropriate public education services for all children with disabilities. Subsequently, the law mandated that these services be provided by qualified professionals.Within this law, the definition of special education included the discipline of physical education.(2) In the United States there are only 14 states that have defined an endorsement or certification in adapted physical education. The worst thing is that 36 states don’t recognize nor endorse the certification their teachers need to provide adequate adapted physical education to the students with disabilities.
The sole purpose of APENS is to ensure that physical education is taught to students with disabilities by a certified and qualified teacher of physical education. The APENS devised a set of 15 National Standards that must be met in order to become a qualified adaptive physical education teacher. Along with this APENS established a national certification exam to measure specialized content.
15 National Standards:(1)
- Human Development
- Motor Behavior
- Exercise Science
- Measurement and Evaluation
- History and Philosophy
- UNIQUE ATTRIBUTES OF LEARNERS
- CURRICULUM THEORY AND DEVELOPMENT
- ASSESSMENT
- INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN AND PLANNING
- Teaching
- CONSULTATION AND STAFF DEVELOPMENT
- STUDENT AND PROGRAM EVALUATION
- CONTINUING EDUCATION
- Ethics
- COMMUNICATION
To see all of the standards in their full description you can acquire the guide Adapted Physical Education National Standards Guide.(3)
The goal of APENS is to promote a nationally certified Adapted Physical Educator (CAPE) – the one qualified person who can make meaningful decisions for children with disabilities in physical education – within every school district in the country.(1)
References
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