Terms frequently used in Committee on
Special Education (CSE) meetings
and Individual Education Plans (IEPs)
Accommodation: Techniques and materials that allow individuals to complete school or work tasks with greater ease and effectiveness (e.g., spellcheckers, tape recorders, and expanded time for completing assignments).
Age equivalent score: Individual student's scores are reported relative to those of the norming population.
Alternative education (or interim) placement (AEP): an alternate class option to improve classroom behavior and address needs that cannot be met in a regular classroom setting.
Assistive technology: Equipment that enhances the ability of students to be more efficient and successful.
Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): A medical condition involving developmentally inappropriate behavior (poor attention skills, impulsivity, and/or hyperactivity).
Auditory discrimination: Ability to detect differences in sounds.
Auditory memory: Ability to retain heard information; can be short-term, long-term memory or sequential memory.
Auditory Processing Disorder (APD): Difficulty accurately processing and interpreting sound information and recognizing subtle differences between sounds in words.
Behavior Intervention Plan (BIP): Positive strategies, program modifications and supplementary aids/supports that address a student's disruptive behaviors to allow for continued education in the least restrictive environment (LRE).
Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD): Occurs when the ear and the brain do not coordinate fully.
Context clues: Sources of information outside of words that readers may use to predict the meanings of unknown words.
Decoding: Translating a word from print to speech or deciphering a new word by sounding it out.
Expressive language: Speaking or writing.
Fluency: The ability to read a text accurately and quickly using proper expression and comprehension.
Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE): A federal requirement in the Individuals with Disability Act mandating that all disabled children must receive special education services and related services at no cost.
Functional Behavioral Assessment (FBA): A problem-solving process to address student problem behavior; uses techniques to identify what triggers a given behavior(s) and to select interventions that directly address them.
Grade equivalent scores: Individual student scores are reported relative to those of the norming population.
Graphic organizers: Text, diagram or other pictorial device that summarizes and illustrates interrelationships among concepts in a text (e.g., maps, webs, graphs, charts, frames or clusters).
Independent educational evaluation (IEE): An evaluation conducted by a qualified examiner, not employed by the school district, at the public's expense.
Individualized Education Program (IEP): A plan outlining special education and related services specifically designed to meet the unique educational needs of a student with a disability.
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 (IDEA 2004): The federal law that guarantees all children with disabilities access to a free and appropriate public education.
Informal assessment: Teacher-designed procedures based on current instruction to assess student performance levels.
Intelligence Quotient (IQ): A measure of intelligence as indicated by an intelligence test. An average score is 100.
Language learning disability (LLD): A disorder that may affect the comprehension and use of spoken or written language and nonverbal language (eye contact, tone of speech).
Learning disability (LD): A disorder that affects the ability to either interpret what people see and hear or to link information from different parts of the brain.
Least restrictive environment (LRE): A learning plan that provides the most possible time in regular classroom.
Listening comprehension: Understanding speech.
Literacy: Reading, writing, and creative and analytical acts involved in producing and comprehending texts.
Multi-sensory instruction: Simultaneously using visual, auditory, kinesthetic-tactile cues to enhance memory/learning.
Occupational therapy (OT): A rehabilitative service provided to students under a doctor's prescription to develop strength and dexterity, hand-eye coordination, or other fine motor skills needed to access the curriculum.
Other health impairments (OHI): Students having limited strength, vitality or alertness, due to chronic or acute health problems (e.g., asthma, ADHD, diabetes) that limit their ability to learn.
Pervasive developmental disorder (PDD): Students delayed or deviant in their social, language, motor and/or cognitive development.
Phonemic awareness: The ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds in spoken words.
Phonics: Instruction aimed at understanding and using the alphabet, the letters that represent those sounds and using that information to read or decode words.
Phonological awareness: Identifying and manipulating words, syllables, onset, rime, rhyming and syllabification.
Physical therapy (PT): Instructional support and treatment of physical disabilities, under a doctor's prescription, that helps a student improve the use of bones, muscles, joints and nerves as related to accessing the curriculum.
Pragmatics: Language use to meet various needs or functions (e.g., asking, describing, telling).
Reading disability: Significant difficulty in reading or understanding written text.
Receptive language: Understanding spoken language through listening or reading.
Self-advocacy: The development of specific skills and understandings that enable students to explain their disabilities to others and cope positively with the attitudes of peers, parents, teachers and employers.
Self-monitoring: The mental act of knowing when one does/does not understand what one is reading, learning or doing.
Sight words: Words that a reader recognizes without having to sound them out.
Special education (SPED): One of 13 disability categories in New York State for which a range of special education services may be provided by decision of a school district's Committee on Special Education: learning disabilities, speech/language impairments, mental retardation, emotional disturbance, multiple disabilities, hearing impairments, orthopedic impairments, visual impairments, autism, deafness, combined deafness/blindness, traumatic brain injury, other health impairment.
Speech impaired (SI): A disability category for students who have difficulty understanding or using language that impacts their ability to access the curriculum.
Transition: The change from secondary school to postsecondary programs, work and independent living typical of young adults; other periods of major change (early childhood to school or from restrictive to mainstreamed settings).
Vocabulary: Word knowledge in listening, speaking or writing vocabulary.