Glossary of Terms
AA: Area Agency
ACCH: Association for the Care of Children’s Health
Accommodations: changes in how test is administered but does not substantially alter what the test measures; includes changes in presentation format, response format, test setting or test timing
Achievement Test: test that measures competency in a particular area of knowledge or skill; measures mastery or acquisition of skills
ADA: Americans with Disabilities Act
Adaptive Behavior: a sort of “practical intelligence.” It is usually measured by scales that identify how well a person manages within his or her own environment.
ADHD: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: a condition identified as a medical diagnosis by the American Psychiatric Association. It may also be referred to as ADD.
ADR: Alternative Dispute Resolution
Advocate: an individual who is not an attorney, who assists parents and children in their dealing with school districts regarding the children’s special education programs.
Alternative Assessments: ways other than standardized tests, to get information about what students know and where they may need help For example, oral reports, projects, portfolios or collections of works, demonstrations, performances, and experiments.
Annual Goals: a required component of an IEP. Goals are written for an individual student and can be set for a maximum of one year.
Aptitude Test: test to measure individual’s ability (native or acquired) to learn in some particular areas such as music or mechanics.
Arbitration: a formal hearing conducted by one or more arbitrators who may be officially sanctioned to reach decisions that are “binding” on the parties. Each side presents arguments with much of the same formality of a court hearing. The arbitrator then decides how the dispute is to be resolved. Participation is usually voluntary.
ARC: Association for Retarded Citizens
Articulation: Speaking
ASL: American Sign Language
ASP: Annual Statement of Placement (Program)
Assessments: ways to find out what students know, and to show teachers and schools areas where they need to improve. Parents, community activists, students, and educators should understand, review, and help improve assessment systems. Paper tests are most common, but there are many other methods. See Standardized Tests.
ASSETT: Assistive Services to Schools for Education, Technology & Training
Assistive Technology Device: equipment used to maintain or improve the capabilities of a child with a disability
Association: ability to categorize visually those relationships that go together; ability to understand relationships, auditorally
AT: Assistive Technology
Attention: the ability to focus (attend) with eyes and/or ears for a period of time without losing the meaning of what is being said
Audiology: related service, includes identification, determination of hearing loss, and referral for rehabilitation of hearing
Auditory Discrimination: ability to discern likenesses or differences in sound
Autism: a developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and non-verbal communication and social interaction, generally evident before age three that adversely affects educational performance
Baseline Measurement: counting and recording how often a certain behavior occurs.
Basic Skills: skill in subjects like reading, writing, spelling and mathematics
Behavior Intervention Plan: a plan of positive behavioral interventions in the IEP of a child whose behaviors interfere with his/her learning or that of others
Behavioral Objective: statement of what a person will be able to do in measurable terms
Bilingual Education: services student whose first language is not English or whose English skills are limited
BIP: Behavior Intervention Plan
BSMS: Bureau of Special Medical Services
Business Day: Means Monday through Friday, except for federal and national holidays
CASA: Court Appointed Special Advocates
Categorical Placement: Special education programs in which students are grouped on the basis of their IDEA eligibility category. Alternative models include “non categorical” placement and “cross-categorical” placement
CEC: Council for Exceptional Children
CF: Cystic Fibrosis
CHADD: Children with Attention Deficit Disorders
Charter Schools: are independent public schools that receive money from a school district or a state department of education but are not governed by the local school board and do not have to meet the requirements. Regulations vary from state to state, but in many states districts and/or schools lose money for each child enrolled in a charter.
CHINS: Children in Need of Services
Chronologically Age Appropriate: A standard by which children’s activities may be evaluated. Instruction and materials should be directed at the student’s actual age, rather than to the interests and tastes of the child.
CMHC: Community Mental Health Centers
Cognitive: a term which refers to reasoning or intellectual capacity
Community-Based: A standard by which special education services may be judged. Skills are taught at varied locations in the community rather than in the classroom in order to facilitate generalization and application.
Compensate: to make up for Conceptualization: the intellectual processing of information or experiences (thinking) at three different levels:
- Concrete level: An apple is round and has smooth skin
- Functional level: The apple can be eaten or made into jelly
- Abstract level: The apple is fruit
Consent: Requirement that the parent be fully informed of all information that relates to any action that school wants to take about the child, that parent understands that consent is voluntary an may be revoked at any time. Also see Procedural Safeguards Notice, Written Prior Notice.
Cooperative learning: is an approach through which students learn in small, self-instructing groups and share responsibility for each others learning.
Correlation: relationship between two scores or measures
COTA: Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant
CP: Cerebral Palsy
Criterion-Referenced Tests (CRT's): measure how well a student has learned a specific skill or subject. They are not tests that produce a number quotient, but show what a student can or cannot do.
Critical thinking: is the ability to find information and use it to reach a logical conclusion or solve a problem.
Cumulative file: General file maintained by the school; parent has right to inspect the file and have copies of any information in it.
Curriculum-based assessment: A methodology of increasing importance in special education in which a child’s progress in the curriculum is measured at frequent intervals.
DCYF: Division for Children, Youth & Families
DD: Developmental Delay
DDC: Developmental Disabilities Council
DDS: Division of Developmental Services
Deafness: a hearing impairment that is so severe that a child is impaired in processing linguistic information through hearing, with or without amplification, which adversely affects educational performance
Deaf-Blindness: simultaneous hearing and visual impairments, the combination of which causes such severe communication and other developmental and educational problems that a child cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for children with deafness or children with blindness
Decode: ability to understand to find meaning for facts, information, experiences which occur in the environment
Delay: development that does not occur within expected time ranges
Development: Stages of growth from babyhood on up, observable in sequential steps. The approximate ages in which steps in development occur are charted in developmental scales. Development is usually measured in the following areas:
- Fine Motor Self-help
- Gross Motor Social-emotional
- Cognitive Language
Developmental Lag or Delay: a delay in the appearance of some steps or phases of growth in any of the above areas
Diagnostic Test: test that diagnosis or locates the areas of weaknesses or strengths
Direct Instruction: presents new content and skills in strict order. Students practice the content and skill in class exercises and homework and are evaluated by tests similar to practice exercises.
Disability: A physical, sensory, cognitive, or affective impairment that causes the student to need special education.
DOE: Department of Education
DRC: Disabilities Rights Center of NH
DS: Down syndrome
Due Process: A due process hearing is designed to be a fair, timely and impartial procedure for resolving disputes that arise between parents and school districts regarding the education of students with disabilities.
Early Childhood Education: Usually covers children from birth to eight years of age. The best programs address physical, emotional, social and intellectual development by focusing on school readiness, health and nutrition.
Early Intervention (EI): Special Education and related services provided to children under the age of 5.
ED: Emotional Disturbance
EDGAR: Education Department General Administration Regulation
Educational Goal: the level of educational achievement accepted as reasonable and desirable for a specific child at a specific time and at a specific rate of speed.
EH: Emotional Handicap
EI: Early Intervention
EIN: Early Intervention Network
Emotional disturbance (ED): See Serious Emotional Disturbance
Encode: ability to express ideas in symbols or words
English as a Second Language (ESL): programs take children whose first language is not English out of regular classrooms to study English
English Language Learners (ELL): See Limited English Proficient
ESY: Extended School Year
Expressive language: Ability to communicate by using words, writing or gestures.
Extended School Day: A provision for a special education student to receive instruction for a period longer than the standard day.
Extended School Year: A provision for special education students to receive instruction during ordinary school “vacation” periods.
FBA: functional Behavior Assessment
FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act): A federal law that regulates the management of student records and disclosure of information from those records. The act has its own administrative enforcement mechanism.
FAPE (Free Appropriate Public Education): Provision required under IDEA
FAS: Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
Fine Motor: functions that require tiny muscle movements. For example: writing or typing
Figure-Ground: ability of learner to distinguish at will, what one wishes to see (figure) from the environment (ground).
Frustration Level: the level at which a child is tense, hesitates, makes many errors and lacks confidence.
Functional Curriculum: A curriculum focused on practical life skills, and usually taught in the community-based setting, with concrete materials that are a regular part of everyday life. The purpose of this type of instruction is to maximize the student’s generalization to real life use of his/her skills.
General Curriculum: Curriculum adopted by the LEA or SEA for all children from preschool through high school
Grade Equivalent: The average raw score for all children in the same school. That is, the average raw score of all third graders was ten correct on the math test, then, this raw score is converted into a grade equivalent score of 3.0 (meaning grade three, zero months). They provide a very rough estimate of a child’s mastery of academic work or capacity to learn.
Gross motor: functions that require large muscle movements. For example walking, jumping.
Grouping: puts students together for a specific reason and amount of time. See Tracking
GSILF: Granite State Independent Living Foundation
Hearing Impaired: impairment in hearing, whether permanent or fluctuating, which adversely affects a child’s educational performance, but is not included under definition of deafness.
Heterogeneous Grouping: An educational practice in which students of diverse abilities are placed within the same instructional groups. This practice is usually helpful in the integration of children with disabilities.
Homogeneous Grouping: An educational practice in which students of similar abilities are placed within the same instructional groups. This practice usually serves as a barrier to the integration of children with disabilities.
Hyperactivity: habitually unusual and inappropriate amounts of movement in a child
IDEA: Individuals with disabilities Education Act of 1997. The law that modifies and extends the Education for all Handicapped Children Act.
IEE: Independent Educational Evaluation
IEP: Individualized Educational Plan. This is a document developed at an IEP meeting and sets the standard by which subsequent special education services are usually determined appropriate.
IEP Team: develops the IEP. By law, the team should include parent(s), regular teacher, special education teacher, special services providers, school district representative, person knowledgeable about evaluating the child’s disability, others invited by the parent or school district, and in some cases, the student.
IFSP: Individualized Family Service Plan. The document that outlines the services to be delivered to families of infants and toddlers receiving special services.
Inclusion: A popular philosophical position based upon the belief that we need to return to one educational system for all students, and that every student is entitled to an instructional program which meets his/her individual need and learning characteristics. See Mainstreaming.
Independent Evaluation: is testing done by someone who doesn’t work for the school system.
Independent Level: A way of expressing a child’s level of mastery of the three R’s
In-home Interventions: Special education services delivered in a child’s own home. This is sometimes done to facilitate generalization for children with cognitive disabilities and to generalize self-control strategies for children with behavioral problems.
Initial Evaluation: determines whether a student is eligible to receive special education services or needs an IEP.
Instruction: refers to the methods teachers use. Common methods of instruction are lecture, discussion, exercise, experiment, role play, small group, and writing assignments.
Instructional Placement: Phrase used to describe the situation in which a child spends at least half of his/her school day in special education
Intelligence: ability to learn from experience and apply it in the future to solve problems and make judgments.
Intelligence Quotient (IQ): a way of expressing the results, through a score, of an intelligence test.
ITP: Individualized Transition Plan. see Transition Plans.
JTPA: Job Training & Partnership Act
Kinesthetic: ability to learn through body movements
LD: Learning Disabled/Learning Disability
LDA: Learning Disabilities Association of America
LEA (Local Education Agency): local school district
Learning Characteristics: physical factors, attention factors, preferred input channel, preferred response channel, level of cognitive development, capacity to work independently or not
Learning Disability: any disability that impedes a child’s ability to learn
Learning Style: The way a person goes about learning
Limited English Proficient (LEP): refers to students who are not at grade-level in reading and writing English and for whom English is second language.
LRE (Least Restrictive Environment): A requirement of IDEA. It means that children with disabilities should be taught with children who do not have disabilities, in a setting that is as much like a regular classroom as possible.
Manifestation Determination Review: a meeting of the IEP team, when a child with a disability acts out in school, or violates a school rule. It is an investigation of whether or not the behavior is related to his/her disability (manifestation of the disability). Behaviors are a manifestation of a child’s disabilities if those behaviors are caused by, or related to, the student’s disabilities or if the disabilities impact the student’s ability to understand the consequences of their behavior. Meeting must be done if the student is suspended 10 or more days in a school year.
Mainstreaming: Refers to the return of children with mild disabilities to a regular classroom for a portion of each school day.
MD: Muscular Dystrophy
Mediation: A voluntary dispute resolution process.
Memory Sequence: ability to remember, in order, what has been seen
Mental Age: refers to the score a person receives on an intelligence test. Compares scores to the results achieved by other children give the same test at the same age.
Mental Retardation: significantly sub-average general intellectual functioning existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period, which adversely affects a child’s educational performance.
MICE: Multi-sensory Intervention through Consultation and Education
Modality: channels of input
Modifications: Substantial changes in what the student is expected to demonstrate: includes changes in instructional level, content, and performance criteria, may include changes in test form or format; includes alternative assignments.
MR: Mental Retardation
Multi-Cultural Education: began as a way to celebrate diversity in school. Those who started it believed schools could start with dances, dress, dialect, dinners, and other cultural expression and develop understanding among difference cultural groups.
Multi-Sensory: using many senses
Multiple disabilities: simultaneous impairments, the combination of which causes such severe educational problems that the child cannot be accommodated in a special education program solely for one of the impairments. The term does not include children with deaf-blindness.
NAMI: National Alliance for the Mentally Ill
Native Language: language normally spoken by child’s parents
NCLB: No Child Left Behind
Negotiation: an informal process at which no neutral or third party is present. The parties, with or without their advisors, meet and discuss their differences. Options are examined and compromises are discussed until either a resolution is reached or the negotiations are stopped and some other method of resolving the dispute is found.
NHATECH: NH Assistive Technology Center
NHESSI: NH Educational Services for the Sensory Impaired
NICHCY: National Information Center for Children and Youth with Disabilities
No Child Left Behind: The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is the new federal law to improve education. The law requires each state to set higher standards for what children should know and be able to do in grades 3-8. States and school districts will then work toward achieving those standards for all students over the next 12 years.
NORD: National Organization for Rare Disorders
Norm: statistical term which describes the performance of some specified group; “Norm” indicates “normal” or usual or average performance-status quo-what is
Norm-referenced tests (NRT’s): compare each student’s score to the scores of students who took the same exam before. Questions are usually based on the content of nationally-used textbooks, not what is taught locally, so students may be tested on things local schools do not teach. Examples: CAT, CTBS, MAT
NVLD: Non-Verbal Learning Disability
Objective Tests: tests in which a single answer key is used-scores have no option as to rightness or wrongness of the answer
Observation: watching and recording systematically-facts, data, behavior
Occupational Therapy: A special education related service which is usually focused upon the development of a student’s fine motor skills and/or the identification of adapted ways of accomplishing activities of daily living when a student’s disabilities preclude doing those tasks in typical ways.
OCR (US Office for Civil Rights): An agency of the federal government’s executive branch within the Department of Education. It is charged with enforcing a number of civil rights statutes including Section 504.
OHI: Other Health Impaired
On-Task Behavior: expected behavior at that moment on that particular task
Orthopedic Impairment: a severe orthopedic impairment which adversely affects a child’s educational performance
OSEP-US Office of Special Education Programs: An office within OSERS charged with assuring that the various states comply with IDEA
OSERS-US Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services: An agency of the federal government’s executive branch within the Department of Education
OT: Occupational Therapy
Other Health Impaired: having limited strength, vitality, or alertness, due to chronic or acute health problems such as a heart condition, asthma, hemophilia, leukemia, diabetes, which adversely affect a child’s educational performance
PDD: Pervasive Developmental disorder
Percentile: a score that reflects a comparison of one child’s performance with others, taking the same test
Percentile Rank: refers to a point in a distribution of scores
Perception: mental ability to grasp or understand objects by means of the senses
Peer Tutor: are students who have mastered certain skill or information and then help others at the same grade-level learn those skills or materials
Performance Standards: what a student is supposed to be able to do by the end of a particular grade. For example: at the end of third grade students are expected to know how to multiply numbers
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