GACE Special Education General Curriculum (P-12) (735) cheat sheet

IDEA defines 13 disability categories; specific learning disability is the largest, accounting for roughly one-third to 40 percent of students with IEPs.

Intellectual disability requires significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning plus concurrent deficits in adaptive behavior, with onset during the developmental period.

Specific learning disability is a disorder in basic psychological processes involved in understanding or using language; an exclusionary clause rules out disabilities that are primarily the result of visual, hearing, motor, intellectual, or emotional impairment or economic disadvantage.

ADHD is not a separate IDEA category; students with ADHD typically qualify under other health impairment, and sometimes under specific learning disability or emotional disturbance.

Emotional disturbance requires one or more of five characteristics exhibited over a long period of time and to a marked degree, with an adverse effect on educational performance.

Autism requires deficits in social communication plus restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities, generally evident before age three.

Traumatic brain injury is an acquired injury to the brain caused by external physical force; congenital or degenerative conditions and birth trauma are excluded.

Eligibility requires three elements: the student meets a category definition, the disability causes an adverse educational effect, and the student needs specially designed instruction.

Required IEP content: present levels of academic achievement and functional performance, measurable annual goals, how progress will be measured and reported, special education and related services, supplementary aids and program modifications, an LRE explanation, assessment accommodations, and service dates, frequency, and duration.

IEP team membership: parent, general education teacher (if the student is or may be in general education), special education teacher, LEA representative, an individual who can interpret evaluation results, and the student when appropriate.

An initial full evaluation must be completed within 60 days of parental consent or the state timeline; the IEP is reviewed at least annually and eligibility is redetermined at least every three years.

A measurable annual goal states the timeframe, conditions, observable behavior, and performance criterion, and is written from the present-levels baseline.

Parents who disagree with a district evaluation may request an independent educational evaluation at public expense; the district must either fund it or request a due process hearing.

Transition planning begins no later than age 16 and includes measurable postsecondary goals, transition services, and a course of study needed to reach those goals.

Students with significant cognitive disabilities may take an alternate assessment aligned to alternate achievement standards; federal law caps proficient scores at 1 percent of all tested students.

Prior written notice must be provided whenever the school proposes or refuses to change identification, evaluation, placement, or the provision of a free appropriate public education.

Least restrictive environment continuum, from most to least inclusive: general education with supplementary aids and services, resource room, separate class, separate school, homebound or hospital placement.

Removal from the current placement for more than 10 consecutive school days, or a series of removals constituting a pattern, is a change of placement requiring a manifestation determination.

The manifestation determination review must be held within 10 school days of the decision to change placement.

A 45-school-day interim alternative educational setting is permitted for weapons, illegal drugs, or infliction of serious bodily injury, regardless of whether the behavior was disability-related.

A functional behavioral assessment identifies antecedents, the behavior, consequences, and function; the resulting behavior intervention plan specifies replacement behaviors, teaching strategies, and reinforcement.

PBIS tiers: universal for all students, targeted for small groups, and intensive for individuals, distributed at roughly 80, 15, and 5 percent of students.

Positive-to-corrective feedback ratios of about 4 to 1, together with precorrection of predictable problem situations, reduce off-task behavior.

Environmental supports that reduce problem behavior include visual schedules, predictable routines, posted expectations, reduced clutter, defined traffic paths, and purposeful seating.

Explicit instruction sequence: review, state the objective, model (I do), guided practice with feedback (we do), independent practice (you do), cumulative review.

Forward chaining teaches the first step first and adds steps in order; backward chaining teaches the last step first and works backward.

The concrete-to-representational-to-abstract (CRA) sequence moves from manipulatives to drawings to abstract symbols and algorithms.

Universal Design for Learning rests on three principles: multiple means of representation, multiple means of engagement, and multiple means of action and expression.

Reading's five components are phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension; dyslexia intervention emphasizes phonological awareness and systematic, explicit phonics.

Co-teaching models: one teach one observe, one teach one assist, station teaching, parallel teaching, alternative teaching, and team teaching.

Differentiation alters content, process, or product and is planned around student readiness, interest, and learning profile.

Prompts move from least to most intrusive (verbal, gestural, modeled, physical) and are faded as student accuracy improves.

Mnemonics, graphic organizers, and self-regulated strategy development are evidence-based supports for memory, comprehension, and written expression.

Score scales: standard scores mean 100, SD 15; T-scores mean 50, SD 10; scaled scores mean 10, SD 3; z-scores mean 0, SD 1.

A standard score of 85 equals a percentile rank of about 16, one standard deviation below the mean; a score of 115 is about the 84th percentile.

Confidence intervals are built from the obtained score plus or minus the standard error of measurement; a smaller SEM indicates a more precise score.

Reliability types include test-retest, alternate form, internal consistency, and inter-rater; validity types include content, construct, and criterion-related.

Norm-referenced tests compare a student with peers in the norm sample; criterion-referenced tests compare performance with a defined standard or skill sequence.

Curriculum-based measurement uses brief, standardized, repeated probes that are graphed so rate of improvement can be compared with an aimline.

A common data-based decision rule: four consecutive data points below the aimline signals that instruction should be changed.

Accommodations change access without changing what is measured; modifications change the content or performance standard; both must be documented in the IEP.

Age- and grade-equivalent scores are not statistically reliable for individual decisions and should not be used to describe a student's performance.

Public Law 94-142 (1975) established free appropriate public education, procedural safeguards, IEPs, and least restrictive environment; IDEA was reauthorized in 1997 and 2004.

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (1973) is broader than IDEA: it uses the major life activities standard and applies to any program receiving federal funds, without IDEA-style categorical funding.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) extends nondiscrimination protections to employment, public services, public accommodations, and telecommunications.

FERPA (1974) gives parents the right to inspect and amend education records, requires a response within 45 days, requires annual notice, and limits disclosure without consent.

Board of Education v. Rowley (1982): FAPE requires instruction and support sufficient to confer educational benefit; districts need not maximize a student's potential.

Honig v. Doe (1988): a student may not be expelled or excluded for behavior that is a manifestation of the disability, and unilateral exclusion for dangerous behavior was rejected.

PARC (1972) and Mills (1972) established rights to public education and due process for students with disabilities; Brown v. Board of Education (1954) ended racial segregation in public schools.

Procedural safeguards include prior written notice, access to records, mediation, due process hearings, and the right to be represented by counsel.

Under the CEC code of ethics and state law, educators must keep student records confidential and report suspected child abuse or neglect.