Glossary of Terms

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight" (NIV, 1973/2011, Proverbs 3:5-6).

"Whoever is patient has great understanding, but one who is quick-tempered displays folly" (NIV, 1973/2011, Proverbs 14:29).

504 Plan: Section 504 of the federal law entitled, Rehabilitation Act of 1973, restricts prejudices based on recognized disabilities (ISBE, 2022). In the classroom a 504 Plan can provide a student with accommodations to ensure their equal access to education. Qualifying situations include physical or mental impairments (diabetes, mobility, attention disorders, brain injuries) in which the impairment interferes with the student's ability to equally access the educational resources available to their peers. While the 504 Plan is not specifically a special education initiative, many of the same team members will gather to complete the evaluation and development of a 504 plan.

Adaptive Behavior Assessment System (ABAS):Adaptive skills include daily living skills, communication, self-care, safety, basic academics. The ABAS is currently in its third edition, and sets out to assess these skills through the use of rating scales (Harrison & Oakland, 2015). The student, teachers, and parents or guardians are all asked to answer a series of questions about the student's abilities and behaviors in specific situations. The results will measure the students' skill levels based on age or grade-level peers. Designed for individuals of all ages, the ABAS scales take approximately 20 minutes to complete.

Age Equivalency (AE): An Age Equivalency (AE) identifies the age of the average students who earned the same scores as a student on a given assessment. For instance, a 9 year old student may have a AE of 7-2, which means that the student's score reflects the score of a typical student who is seven years-two months old (Cohen & Spenciner, 2015).

Annual Review: Each year, the Individualized Education Plan (IEP) is reviewed and updated. This "annual review" provides educators with a chance to review and update accommodations, goals, and service minutes at least once every school year.

Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC): Behavior is assessed in the areas of anxiety, hyperactivity, adaptability, social skills, aggression, and somatization. The BASC is currently in its third edition, and sets out to assess these skills through the use of rating scales (Reynolds & Kamphaus, 2015). The student, teachers, and parents or guardians are all asked to answer series of questions about the student's behaviors in specific situations. The results will measure the students' behaviors based on age or grade-level peers. The BASC is designed to assess students form age two through age 25.

Behavior Intervention Plan (BIP): A plan developed and written by a team of staff members and parents or guardians in concordance to a Functional Behavior Analysis to pinpoint the behavior of a student that need to be improved or replaced. The plan will include environmental changes (i.e. schedule adjustments, preferential seating), instructional changes (i.e. replacement behaviors, social skills, or coping skills instruction), and positive supports (i.e. positive attention/praise, reward system). It will also outline how data will be collected in regards to the behavior and how home/school communication will be addressed (ISBE, 2022).

Benchmark Assessments: Assessments given to all students, at specific points in the school year, to track student progress through the curriculum and identify students who might need additional services to be successful through the local RtI program. Typically given three to five times each year.

Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM): Curriculum-Based Measurements are assessment that are done repeatedly to measure student performance on a specific curriculum skills and content (Cohen & Spenciner, 2015).

Correct Per Minute (CPM): A Correct Per Minute score identifies the number of items from an assessment that a student answers correctly (or words read correctly - WPM) within a one-minute timed assessment.

Domain Meeting: A domain meeting is held at the start of the evaluation process at both the initial and the re-evaluation stages. The meeting reviews the seven domain areas: academics, physical (gross motor and fine motor), health, communication, functional performance, cognitive, and social/emotional status. The team will discuss the current achievement and behavior of the student, review what data is currently available to assess the student's progress, and determine what additional assessments are necessary to complete a special education evaluation for the student. During this meeting, parents or guardians will typically be asked to sign a consent for the evaluation process to be carried out.

Eligibility: Special education eligibility refers to the team decision based on a student's evaluation results about whether or not the student meets the criteria necessary to be placed in the special education program. This decision is re-evaluated at least every three years (triennial) to ensure that appropriate services are provided to students.

Evaluation: Evaluation is the process through which a student's skills and abilities are examined through a battery of assessment procedures. The assessments given will provide the special education team with the information to make informed decisions on the student's academic needs and eligibility for the special education program.

Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE): Federal regulations require that all students with disabilities are entitled to a Free, Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) and are educated to the greatest extent possible with their general education peers (OCR, 2020).

Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA): The Functional Behavior Analysis is the process of collecting data to analyze inappropriate behavior and establish interventions to teach and implement more appropriate behaviors (Cohen & Spenciner, 2015). The analysis focuses not only on what the behaviors that the student displays, but attempts to find a reason for the behaviors and identify the events in the classroom surrounding the student's behavior. In conjunction with the Behavior Intervention Plan, the FBA identifies and addresses possible antecedents, behaviors, and consequences and provide supports for students to find more appropriate ways of responding and behaving..

Grade Equivalency (GE): A Grade Equivalency (GE) identifies the grade level of the average students who earned the same scores as a student on a given assessment. For instance, a third grade student may have a GE of 4.9, which means that the student's score reflects the score of a typical student who is in the ninth month of grade four (Cohen & Spenciner, 2015).

Individualized Education Program (IEP): Also known as an Individualized Education Plan, an IEP is a plan, developed and written by the IEP team members to identify specific special education services, accommodations, and modifications put in place for a student with a disability (Cohen & Spenciner, 2015).

Least Restrictive Environment (LRE): Least Restrictive Environment is the idea that the student will remain with the general education population as much as possible and will only be removed from that environment when necessary to receive the services identified to meet their needs. Special education services often start at the minimum amount possible for success with additional services being layered on as progress deems necessary.

Norm-Referenced Assessment: A norm-referenced assessment is an assessment that measures student abilities or skills and compares the results to the results of other students who have completed the same assessment (Cohen & Spenciner, 2015).

Percentile Rank: The percentile rank is a derived, or adjusted, score that identifies the percentage of students who have taken the same assessment and earned the same score (Cohen & Spenciner, 2015).

Prioritization for Urgency of Need for Services (PUNS): The state of Illinois maintains a waiting list of individuals with disabilities who have signed up for specialized services and funding. This waiting list is known as PUNS, which stands for the Prioritization for Urgency of Needs for Services (IDHS, 2022).

Procedural Safeguards: Otherwise referred to as parental rights, the procedural safeguards document is a legal document that outlines the special education procedures for the state of Illinois. This document is offered to parents or guardians at least once a year along with their most recent IEP paperwork (ISBE, 2021).

Progress Monitoring: Progress monitoring consists of short assessments given frequently to track student progress on a specific skills. They are typically given to students whose scores have fallen below level on benchmark assessments. Students who perform farther below the majority of their peers are given the assessments more frequently. It is often used during the RtI process to collect data to determine the success of a particular intervention or set of interventions.

Response to Intervention (RtI): Response to Intervention is a multi-tiered process used to monitor progress of the whole class (Tier 1), and identify students who need additional researched-based interventions, (Tier 2), and those that need even more frequent and intensive interventions (Tier 3). The Response to Intervention program can focus on both behavior and academic progress. This process is used by many states as a method of determining eligibility for some categories of special education (such as, Specific Learning Disability or Emotional Disability). In the state of Illinois, evidence of the RtI process and documentation that a student remains below level despite a series of intensive interventions implemented over a period of time are required for students to be eligible for a Specific Learning Disability.

Standard Score: The standard score is a score of a particular assessment that has been converted to match the same mean, or average of other scores (Cohen & Spenciner, 2015). Scores are most generally arranged on a scale in which 100 is the average score, while 85 and 115 are one standard deviation away from the average. Scores below 85 are in the low to below average range, while scores above 115 are in the high to above average range.

Stanford-Binet (SB): Stanford-Binet (SB5), currently in its fifth edition, is an assessment used to assess and individual's Intellectual Quotient (IQ) and cognitive abilities. It assesses abilities in the areas of verbal , non-verbal, visual-spatial processing, quantitative reasoning, and working memory (Roid, 2003). The SB5 is frequently chosen over other intelligence assessments due to its extensive non-verbal battery, that is beneficial to determine cognitive abilities in students who have language differences. At other times, the SB5 is chosen for its abbreviated battery that gives an estimate of student's cognitive abilities in shorter testing sessions (20 minutes compared to the full-length 75 minutes).

Test of Language Development (TOLD): The Test of Language Development, currently in its 4th edition, provides an assessment of a student's language skills in the areas of vocabulary, sentence combining, grammar, speaking, and semantics (Hammill & Newcomer, 2008). The primary level focuses on students ages four through 8, while the intermediate level is designed for students ages eight through seventeen. It typically takes 30 minutes to an hour to administer.

Triennial: Special education regulations require that all students go through the evaluation progress at least every three years. Known as the "triennial", this re-evaluation is provided to students to ensure that they continue to receive the services that fit their educational needs.

Wechsler Individual Achievement Test (WIAT): The Wechsler Individual Achievement Test, currently in its fourth edition, is an achievement assessment for students ages four to fifty (NCS Pearson & Breaux, 2020). It contains twenty subtests ranging in the skill areas of reading, writing, and mathematics and takes up to an hour to complete in its entirety. The examiner can choose which subtests to administer based on the needs of a specific student.

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC): The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, currently in its fifth edition, can be used to assess the intelligence and cognitive skills of students ages six through 16 (Wechsler, 2014). Subtests provide the examiner with information on a students skills in the areas of fluid reasoning, working memory, processing speed, quantitative reasoning, verbal, nonverbal, and visual-spatial. The assessment can take approximately an hour to administer.

Categories of Special Education in Illinois:

The special education regulations have identified fourteen areas of disabilities, or categories, under which a child can be eligible for special education services.

Autism: Autism or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder that encompasses a wide umbrella of characteristics including (lack of eye contact, difficulty with social situations, avoidance of change, preoccupation with specific topics or ideas, repetition, and speech limitations (ISBE, 2022).

Deaf-Blindness: Deaf-Blindness refers to a disorder that is characterized by a combination of both visual and hearing impairments (ISBE, 2022).

Deafness: Deafness refers to a hearing disorder that affects the child's ability to process language (ISBE, 2022).

Developmental Delay: The developmental delay diagnosis is available to students ages three through nine who display delays in one or more areas of development: academics, communication, physical, adaptive skills, or social skills (ISBE, 2022).

Emotional Disability: Previously referred to as a behavior disorder, an emotional disability is characterized by a lack in an individual's ability to learn (not explained by another factor) or build relationships and frequent inappropriate behaviors (ISBE, 2022).

Hearing Impairment: A hearing impairment is an auditory impairment that negatively impacts educational performance (ISBE, 2022).

Intellectual Disability: Previously known as a cognitive disorder, an intellectual disability refers to general intelligence and adaptive behavior that is considerably below average level (ISBE, 2022).

Multiple Disabilities: Multiple Disabilities refers to a combination of various disabilities requiring intensive special education services (ISBE, 2022).

Orthopedic Impairment: An orthopedic impairment is a physical impairment that negatively influences the student's ability to learn academically (ISBE, 2022).

Other Health Impairment: Other Health Impairment encompasses medical diagnoses that negatively affect the student's learning such as diabetes, attention deficit disorder, or lead poisoning (ISBE, 2022).

Specific Learning Disability: Specific Learning Disability refers to a psychological disability that adversely affects a student's ability to learn in one or more skill area that cannot be explained by any other impairment and or by an environmental or cultural disadvantage (ISBE, 2022).

Speech or Language Impairment: A Speech or Language impairment refers to a disability in the area of communication, including language, speech, or voice, that affects a student's ability to learn and function in the classroom (ISBE, 2022).

Traumatic Brain Injury: A Traumatic Brain Injury is a cognitive and/or achievement disorder that is directly affected by a traumatic injury to the brain (ISBE, 2022).

Visual Impairment: A visual disorder, including partial or full blindness, that affects a child's ability to learn and function in the classroom without specialized supports and services (ISBE, 2022).