CAPE Professional Ethics & Standards 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Under the National Consortium for Physical Education for Individuals with Disabilities (NCPEID) standards, adapted physical educators are expected to:
- Focus exclusively on motor skill remediation
- Demonstrate competency across multiple content areas including fitness, motor behavior, and exercise science (Correct answer)
- Defer all programming decisions to the general PE teacher
- Limit services to students with severe disabilities only
Correct answer: Demonstrate competency across multiple content areas including fitness, motor behavior, and exercise science
NCPEID standards define broad competency areas that CAPEs must demonstrate across the full scope of adapted physical education.
Question 2: When drafting IEP goals for a student with a disability, the CAPE's ethical responsibility includes:
- Setting goals based primarily on administrative convenience
- Ensuring goals are measurable, functional, and based on comprehensive assessment data (Correct answer)
- Writing goals identical to peers without disabilities
- Allowing only the special education teacher to write PE goals
Correct answer: Ensuring goals are measurable, functional, and based on comprehensive assessment data
Ethical practice requires IEP goals to be individualized, measurable, and grounded in objective assessment.
Question 3: A student with autism spectrum disorder becomes distressed during a class activity. The ethical response of the CAPE is to:
- Continue the activity to maintain schedule consistency
- Immediately remove all other students from the area
- Respond with individualized, evidence-based behavioral support strategies (Correct answer)
- Document the behavior and report to administration without intervening
Correct answer: Respond with individualized, evidence-based behavioral support strategies
Ethical adapted PE practice requires responding to student distress with individualized, evidence-based strategies.
Question 4: The concept of 'least restrictive environment' (LRE) in adapted physical education means:
- All students with disabilities must participate in general PE regardless of need
- Students should be educated with peers without disabilities to the maximum extent appropriate (Correct answer)
- Separate APE classes are always preferred for safety
- LRE applies only to academic settings, not physical education
Correct answer: Students should be educated with peers without disabilities to the maximum extent appropriate
LRE requires students with disabilities to participate with non-disabled peers to the greatest extent that is appropriate for the individual.
Question 5: A CAPE shares a student's confidential health information with a parent volunteer without consent. This action primarily violates:
- The student's right to free appropriate public education
- FERPA and professional confidentiality standards (Correct answer)
- The school's attendance policy
- IDEA transition planning requirements
Correct answer: FERPA and professional confidentiality standards
Sharing confidential student health information without proper consent violates FERPA and professional confidentiality obligations.
Question 6: When a CAPE disagrees with a team decision about a student's placement, the most ethical course of action is to:
- Implement the decision without comment to preserve team harmony
- Unilaterally change the placement without informing the team
- Document the disagreement and pursue resolution through established IEP team processes (Correct answer)
- Refuse to serve the student until the placement changes
Correct answer: Document the disagreement and pursue resolution through established IEP team processes
Ethical practice requires voicing professional disagreement through proper IEP team channels while continuing to serve the student.
Question 7: Professional ethics require a CAPE to obtain informed consent before conducting formal assessments primarily because:
- Assessment scores are always shared publicly
- Parents and guardians have the legal and ethical right to know the purpose and nature of evaluations (Correct answer)
- Informed consent speeds up the assessment timeline
- Federal law only requires consent for medical procedures
Correct answer: Parents and guardians have the legal and ethical right to know the purpose and nature of evaluations
IDEA requires informed parental consent before conducting initial evaluations, reflecting both legal and ethical obligations to families.
CAPE Professional Ethics & Standards 3
Under the National Consortium for Physical Education for Individuals with Disabilities (NCPEID) standards, adapted physical educators are expected to: