Praxis 5354 key terms

The federal special education law that requires states to identify children with disabilities, provide them a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive setting, and protect family rights through written plans and due process.

The entitlement of every eligible student with a disability to public education individually designed to confer meaningful educational benefit, provided at no cost to the family and consistent with the student's IEP.

The principle that a student with a disability should be educated with peers without disabilities as much as is appropriate, with removal to separate settings only when supplementary aids and services cannot make general education work.

A written plan developed by a team including parents that records a student's present levels, measurable annual goals, special education and related services, accommodations, and the extent of participation with peers without disabilities.

The rule that no child may be denied public education because of a disability, however severe, and that schools must serve every eligible student rather than exclude or indefinitely suspend them.

A district's ongoing duty to locate, identify, and evaluate children from birth through age 21 who may need special education, including children who are homeless, enrolled privately, or not yet in school.

Legally required protections for families, such as written notice before changes, access to records, independent evaluations, voluntary mediation, and the right to a due process hearing when they disagree with the school.

A federal civil rights law barring disability discrimination in federally funded programs; it requires schools to provide accommodations and services so a student with a disability has equal access to curriculum and activities.

A required team meeting held when a school proposes to remove a student with a disability for more than ten days, deciding whether the misconduct was caused by or directly related to the disability or to inadequate services.

A disability in one or more basic psychological processes that affects listening, speaking, reading, writing, spelling, or mathematics, and is not primarily caused by another disability, sensory loss, or lack of appropriate instruction.

A specific learning disability of neurobiological origin involving difficulty with accurate and fluent word recognition, poor decoding and spelling, and weak phonological processing, despite adequate classroom instruction and average or better intelligence.

A specific learning disability in mathematics marked by weak number sense, difficulty remembering math facts, and trouble with accurate computation or reasoning that persists despite good teaching.

Significantly below-average intellectual functioning together with limitations in adaptive behavior, both present before age 18, that affect academic learning and everyday independence.

The conceptual, social, and practical skills people need for daily living, such as communication, self-care, safety, money use, and getting along with others; deficits help identify intellectual disability.

A neurodevelopmental disability characterized by persistent differences in social communication and interaction along with restricted, repetitive behaviors or interests that interfere with school and daily functioning.

A condition shown over a long period by problems with learning, relationships, behavior, mood, or physical symptoms that are not explained by other factors and that interfere with educational progress.

A neurodevelopmental condition of persistent inattention and/or hyperactivity and impulsivity that interferes with functioning, frequently affecting seatwork, organization, turn-taking, and sustained listening in class.

The mental processes that regulate goal-directed behavior, including planning, organizing, working memory, self-monitoring, and inhibiting impulses; these processes are often weak in students with ADHD or learning disabilities.

Awareness of and ability to manipulate the sound structure of spoken language, including syllables, rhymes, and individual phonemes; it is a key early predictor of reading and a frequent focus of intervention.

Accommodations change how content is accessed or assessed without changing expectations, while modifications change what is taught or the required performance level; both are documented and reviewed by the team.

A teacher-directed approach that breaks content into small steps, models the skill clearly, provides guided and independent practice, and gives immediate corrective feedback with high student response rates.

The process of breaking a complex or multi-step skill into its component steps in the order they occur, so each step can be taught, practiced, and reinforced before the whole sequence is chained.

A procedure for teaching multi-step routines by linking steps in sequence, beginning with the first step and adding forward, or beginning with the last step and working backward to the start.

A planned ranking of cues, such as gestural, verbal, modeled, or physical assistance, arranged from least to most intrusive, used to obtain a correct response and then faded systematically as independence grows.

A structured problem-solving process that collects data to identify when, where, and why a behavior occurs, especially the consequence or function maintaining it, so an effective support plan can be built.

A written plan, usually following a functional behavioral assessment, that specifies prevention strategies, replacement skills to teach, responses to the behavior, and data to collect so the team can judge results.

A proactive planning framework that builds in multiple means of engagement, representation, and action and expression so varied learners can reach the same rigorous goals without later retrofitting.

Adjusting content, process, product, or environment based on students' readiness, interests, and learning profiles while holding common meaningful goals, so each learner works at an appropriately challenging level.

Any item, device, or service, from pencil grips and graphic organizers to speech-to-text software, that maintains or improves the functional performance of a student with a disability; it must be considered for every IEP.

Repeated brief measurement of a student's skill in a target area, graphed over time and compared to a goal line, to judge whether intervention is working and to adjust instruction quickly.

Short standardized probes, such as one-minute oral reading or math computation samples, used to measure growth repeatedly and compare a student's rate of improvement with that of typically developing peers.

Brief assessment given to all students in a grade or school, usually two or three times a year, to flag those whose performance suggests they may need extra support or further evaluation.

A multi-tiered prevention framework combining universal screening, evidence-based core instruction, targeted interventions of increasing intensity, and progress monitoring to support struggling learners and inform disability identification.

The consistency or dependability of test scores across repeated administrations, different raters, or alternate forms; low reliability limits how confidently a single score can be used for decisions.

The degree to which evidence supports the interpretations and uses a test score is put to for a particular purpose and population, which matters more than whether the test merely looks appropriate.

A score showing how far a result falls from the mean of a norm group in standard deviation units, such as a mean of 100 and standard deviation of 15 on many achievement and intelligence tests.

The initial phase of measurement that records a student's current level of performance before intervention begins, providing the comparison needed to judge whether later progress is meaningful.

An assessment that reports performance against a defined set of skills or a mastery standard rather than against other students, useful for pinpointing what a student can do and what to teach next.