FTCE Exceptional Student Education K-12 flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Free Appropriate Public Education

Special education and related services provided at public expense, under public supervision, meeting state education standards, and delivered in conformity with an individualized education program at no cost to parents.

Least Restrictive Environment

IDEA requirement that students with disabilities be educated with nondisabled peers to the maximum extent appropriate, with removal occurring only when supplementary aids and services cannot achieve satisfactory progress in general education.

Section 504

Rehabilitation Act of 1973 provision barring disability discrimination in programs receiving federal funds; it requires equal access and accommodations but has broader eligibility than IDEA and carries no IEP funding.

Child Find

IDEA mandate requiring states to identify, locate, and evaluate every child suspected of having a disability, including children who are homeless, wards of the state, or enrolled in private schools.

Zero Reject

IDEA principle that no child may be excluded from public education because of a disability, however severe, and districts cannot deny services by claiming a student will not benefit.

Specific Learning Disability

IDEA category describing a disorder in basic psychological processes that impairs listening, speaking, reading, writing, spelling, or mathematics, is not primarily caused by other disabilities, and is the largest eligibility category.

Other Health Impairment

IDEA category for limited strength, vitality, or alertness caused by chronic or acute health conditions such as asthma, attention deficit disorder, diabetes, epilepsy, or sickle cell anemia.

Standard Score

A transformed score referenced to a fixed mean and standard deviation, such as mean 100 and standard deviation 15, permitting comparison of a student's performance with the normative sample.

Percentile Rank

The percentage of students in the norm group who scored at or below a given score; it is not the percentage of test items the student answered correctly.

Standard Error of Measurement

An index of the average error in obtained scores on a test; it is used to construct confidence intervals around a student's score and to judge whether score differences are meaningful.

Curriculum-Based Measurement

Standardized, brief, repeated probes of basic academic skills administered on a schedule to quantify growth and judge whether an instructional intervention is working.

Response to Intervention

A multi-tiered prevention framework using universal screening, research-based interventions of increasing intensity, and continuous progress monitoring to guide both instructional and eligibility decisions.

Triennial Reevaluation

IDEA requirement that a student be reevaluated at least once every three years unless the parent and school district agree in writing that reevaluation is unnecessary.

Alternate Assessment

An achievement measure for students with significant cognitive disabilities that is aligned to grade-level content standards but uses reduced depth, breadth, and complexity, such as Florida's FSAA.

Universal Design for Learning

A planning framework that builds in multiple means of engagement, representation, and action and expression so curriculum is usable by all learners without retrofitting.

Explicit Instruction

Teacher-directed instruction featuring clear modeling, guided practice with high response rates, immediate corrective feedback, and independent practice leading to mastery of a defined skill.

Concrete-Representational-Abstract

A mathematics sequence that introduces a skill with concrete manipulatives, moves to representational drawings, then to abstract symbols and procedures, fading supports at each stage.

Prompt Hierarchy

An ordered set of assistance levels (verbal, gestural, model, physical) delivered least-to-most or most-to-least intrusive and faded systematically as the learner gains independence.

Task Analysis

The process of breaking a complex or chained skill into small, sequentially ordered steps that can be taught, practiced, and used for data collection.

Accommodation Versus Modification

An accommodation changes how a student accesses content or demonstrates learning; a modification changes what is taught or the performance expectation itself.

Phonological Awareness

Knowledge that spoken language is composed of words, syllables, onsets and rimes, and individual phonemes; it is a strong early predictor of reading achievement.

Functional Behavioral Assessment

A systematic process of identifying antecedents, behaviors, and consequences, and the function the behavior serves, in order to design an effective behavior intervention plan.

Manifestation Determination

A review held within 10 school days of a disciplinary change of placement deciding whether the misconduct was caused by or directly and substantially related to the student's disability.

Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports

A tiered, data-driven framework of proactive schoolwide expectations, targeted group supports, and individualized interventions designed to improve social and academic outcomes.

45-Day Interim Alternative Placement

The interim alternative educational setting to which a school may remove a student with a disability for up to 45 school days for weapons, illegal drugs, or serious bodily injury, regardless of manifestation findings.

Extinction

Withholding the reinforcement that previously maintained a behavior; the behavior often increases briefly in rate or intensity, called an extinction burst, before it declines.

Variable Ratio Schedule

A reinforcement schedule that delivers reinforcement after an unpredictable number of responses, producing high, steady response rates that resist extinction.

Prior Written Notice

A written statement schools must give parents before proposing or refusing to initiate or change a child's identification, evaluation, placement, or provision of a free appropriate public education.

Independent Educational Evaluation

An evaluation conducted by a qualified examiner who is not employed by the school district; parents who disagree with a district evaluation may request one at public expense.

LEA Representative

The IEP team member qualified to supervise special education, knowledgeable about the general curriculum and district resources, and authorized to commit the services the team recommends.

Summary of Performance

A document given when a student exits school that summarizes academic achievement and functional performance and recommends ways to meet postsecondary goals.

Measurable Postsecondary Goals

Transition IEP statements, based on age-appropriate transition assessments, describing what the student intends to do after high school in education or training, employment, and independent living.