Acronyms/Glossary

ACRONYMS


ABA: Applied Behavior Analysis

ADA: Americans with Disabilities Act

APA: Alternate Proficiency Assessment

APE: Adaptive Physical Education

AYP: Adequate Yearly Progress

BIP: Behavior Intervention Plan

DOE: Department of Education

EIP: Early Intervention Program

ESY: Extended School Year

FAPE:  Free Appropriate Public Education; a right mandated for every child under federal law.

FBA: Functional Behavior Assessment

FERPA:  Family Educational Rights to Privacy Act

IDEA:  Individuals with Disabilities Education Act/IDEA 2004  Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act

IEP: Individualized Education Program

IFSP:  Individualized Family Service Plan

LEA:  Local Education Agency

LEP: Limited English Proficiency

LRE:  Least Restrictive Environment

NCLB:  No Child Left Behind Act

OSEP:  Office of Special Education Programs, US Department of Education

OSERS:  Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, US Department of Education

OT:  Occupational Therapy

PLEP:  Present Levels of Educational Performance

PT:  Physical Therapy

SLD: Specific Learning Disability

GLOSSARY


Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA):  A set of scientific principles and guidelines which uses direct observation, measurement, and analysis of the relationship between the environment and behavior. In programming for students with autism, ABA employs intensive, highly structured teaching approaches where skills are broken down into their simplest most manageable form.

Accommodations:  Techniques and materials that allow disabled individuals to complete school or work with greater ease and effectiveness.  Examples include spellcheckers, tape recorders, and expanded time for completing assignments.

Assistive Technology (AT):  Any item, piece of equipment, or product system that is used to increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities.

Auditory Discrimination:  The ability to recognize, compare, and differentiate the discrete sounds in words.

Auditory Memory:  The ability to remember something heard some time in the past (long-term auditory memory); the ability to recall something heard very recently (short-term auditory memory).

Behavior Modification:  A technique intended to alter behavior by positive reinforcement (rewarding desirable actions) and extinguishing undesirable actions.

Behavioral Intervention Plan (BIP):  The term can be generally defined as a component of a child's IEP that describes positive behavioral interventions and other strategies that the district must implement to prevent and control unacceptable behaviors.

Central Auditory Processing Disorders (CAPD):  A deficit in information processing of audible stimuli with no deficits attributed to impairments in hearing or intelligence.  To put it simply, it is the inability to attend to, discriminate, recognize or comprehend what is heard, even though hearing and intelligence are normal.

Child Study Team:  Consists of a school psychologist, a learning disabilities teacher/consultant, school social worker, and when needed, a speech-language specialist, responsible for conducting evaluations to determine eligibility for special education and related services for students with disabilities.

Cognitive Ability:  Cognitive, intellectual or innate ability tests measure identifiable skills related to learning or potential.  Cognitive ability is often broken down into components such as verbal skills, non-verbal skills, processing speed and/or working memory.

Compensatory Strategies:  Ways in which a student is taught to manage his or her learning problems, by manipulating and emphasizing strengths as a way to work around skills and/or abilities which may be limited.

Decoding:  The process of acquiring meaning from spoken, written, or printed symbols used in receptive language.

Developmental Delay:  Failure to meet expected developmental milestones in one or more of the following areas:  physical, social, emotional, intellectual, speech and language and/or adaptive development.  Developmental delay is usually a diagnosis made by a doctor based on strict guidelines.

Discrimination:  The process of differentiating between and/or among separate stimuli when either visually or auditorially.

Dyslexia:  A language processing disorder characterized by a difficulty in reading experienced by students who otherwise possess the intelligence and motivation considered necessary for accurate and fluent reading.

Educational Evaluation:  An assessment of a student based on multiple tests, analysis of class work, classroom observation, and teacher input intended to determine levels of achievement in certain academic areas, as well as the student’s learning style and perceptual abilities.

Encoding:  spelling

Expressive Language:  Communication through speech, writing, and/or gestures.

Extended School Year:  Extended school year services during the summer months is considered and discussed at the annual IEP review meeting.  Special education and related services that are provided to a student with a disability beyond the normal school year in accordance with the student’s IEP.

Fine Motor Skills:  The use of small muscles to complete precise tasks such as writing, drawing, buttoning, opening jars, and assembling puzzles.

Functional Behavior Assessment:  A process to determine which behaviors are limiting educational progress; to design interventions that decrease target behaviors; and to promote appropriate behavior(s) through positive behavioral supports.

General Education:  An educational program which follows the regular education programs which follow the core curriculum content standards. 

Gross Motor Skills:  The use of large muscles for activities involving strength and balance, such as walking, running and climbing.

IEP Team:  The group of individuals who are responsible for the development, review and revision of the student’s individualized education program.  

In Class Support:  Programs taught with the regular classroom teacher and the special education teacher; the student has to meet the regular education curriculum requirements for the grade or subject being taught; there will be modification to the instructional strategies or testing procedures which should be listed in the student’s IEP.

Inclusion:  The practice of placing a student who has special education needs into general education classrooms for a least part of the student’s educational program.

Individualized Education Plan (IEP):  The written educational program designed for each classified student, incorporating certain information such as educational goals (long-term and short-term), the duration of the program, and provisions for evaluating the program’s effectiveness and the student’s performance.

Learning Styles:  The ways in which a student best understands and retains learning, e.g., vision, hearing, movement, kinesthetic, or a combination.  Learning style-specific approaches to assessment or instruction emphasize the variations in temperament, attitude, and preferred reflective/impulsive, or verbal/spatial dimensions.

Least Restrictive Environment (LRE):  To the maximum extent appropriate, students with disabilities are educated with students who are not disabled and special classes, separate schooling, or other removal of students with disabilities from the regular educational environment occurs only when the nature and severity of the disability is such that education in regular classes with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily.

Manifestation Determination:  In connection with the discipline of students with disabilities, a determination whether or not the misconduct at issue was either a manifestation of the disability or the result of an inappropriate placement.

Neurological Evaluation:  An examination that specifically focuses on mental status, cranial nerves, motor functions, deep tendon reflexes, sensation and gait abilities; when used more in a psychiatric context, also refers to an examination of an individual's thinking ability.

Pre-Referral Process:  A procedure in which staff members and parents develop intervention strategies to assist a student who is having difficulty in learning, behavior or socialization to function in the regular education classroom.

Psychiatric Evaluation:  An evaluation designed to diagnose any number of emotional, behavioral, or developmental disorders. An evaluation of a child or adolescent is made based on behaviors present and in relation to physical, genetic, environmental, social, cognitive (thinking), emotional, and educational components that may be affected as a result of the behaviors presented.

Psychological Evaluation:  The evaluation of a student’s intellectual, behavioral, social, and emotional characteristics by a certified school psychologist.

Related Services:  Services that are provided to help classified students to benefit from special education.  The services are specified in the student’s IEP and are provided in conjunction with the special education program.  Some examples of related services include:  counseling services, occupational therapy, physical therapy, parent training, social work, speech/language services, transportation.

Resource Center Programs:  The subject is taught by the special education teacher.  The resource center instruction includes individual and small group instruction.

Self-Contained Programs:  Taught by the special education teacher, this is considered a special class program that serves students with similar educational needs; instruction is usually provided with an alternative curriculum based upon the nature or severity of the student’s disability and in accordance with the student’s IEP goals and objectives.

Standardized Test (Norm Referenced Test):  Are designed to give a common measure of students’ performance.  Since the same test is given to large numbers of students throughout the country, a common yardstick or “standard” of measure can be derived to give evaluators a picture of the skills and abilities of students.

Traumatic Brain Injury:  The physical damage to brain tissue or structure that occurs before, during, or after birth that is verified by EEG, MRI, CAT, or a similar examination rather than by observation or performance.