ABSTRACT
Specialist knowledge and expertise provide the rationale for the professional’s role status
and authority. We might therefore expect some reluctance from professionals in allowing
parents to enter areas of their expertise, partly as a result of believing the parent to have
little to offer, and partly because of wanting to preserve their authority and status. In this
chapter, we will examine to what extent parents can or do participate in two areas of
professional enterprise: developmental assessment and education. We will consider what
has to be shared to achieve a negotiating collaboration, including informed consent.
Although focused on specific tasks and approaches, many of the principles and issues
