Unraveling Special Ed Speak: A Parent's Guide to IDEA Parts B & C
Welcome to the world of IEPs, LRE, and the maze of terminology that can leave any caregiver confused in the special education journey. As my son enters his second year in the public education system, I've decided to share our experiences to help unravel the complexities we've encountered along the way. Navigating the world of special education starts with understanding the unique language that comes with it. In this post, we aim to demystify the confusing lingo, offering a user-friendly resource for parents like us. If there's anything you're curious about that we haven't covered, feel free to drop your questions in the comments below – because no parent should feel alone in decoding the intricacies of special education!
Table of Contents
> Individualized Family Service Plans (IFSP)
> Special Education Eligibility
Before we jump in, let’s establish a foundational definition. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a law that makes available a free appropriate public education to eligible children with disabilities throughout the nation and ensures special education and related services to those children.
IDEA consists of four primary components, detailed below. This post will delve into the specifics of IDEA Parts B & C.
IDEA Part A: General Provisions (purpose & definitions)
IDEA Part B: Assistance for All Children with Disabilities
IDEA Part C: Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities
IDEA Part D: National Activities to Improve Education of Children with Disabilities
Early Intervention Services Terminology
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Starting at the beginning, Early Intervention Services are services provided through the state to infants and toddlers with disabilities under the age of three. Here are the key terms to understand:
Infants and toddlers with disabilities
Individuals under three years of age who need early intervention services because the individual -
Is experiencing a developmental delay, as measured by appropriate diagnostic instruments and procedures, on one or more of the following areas:
Physical development, including vision and hearing
Has a diagnosed physical or mental condition that has a high probability of resulting in developmental delay. This includes conditions such as chromosomal abnormalities; genetic or congenital disorders; sensory impairments; inborn errors of metabolism; disorders reflecting disturbance of the development of the nervous system; congenital infections; severe attachment disorders; and disorders secondary to exposure to toxic substances, including fetal alcohol syndrome.
This may also include, at a state’s discretion, at-risk infants and toddlers.
At-risk infant or toddler
An individual under 3 years of age who would be at risk of experiencing a substantial developmental delay if early intervention services were not provided to the individual.
Cognitive Development
Changes over time in children’s thinking, reasoning, use of language, problem solving, and learning, and children’s approaches to interaction with their physical and social environments. Cognition includes:
intelligence; arousal, orientation, attention, and executive function
memory; short and long term
information processing functions such as pattern recognition, facial-emotional content, imitation, cause-and-effect associations, processing multiple sources of information simultaneously
representational thought
reasoning and concept formation; problem solving, language, perspective-taking, social context and rules
For children age birth through two, cognitive development involves learning to coordinate sensory input with emerging motor skills, development of object permanence, differentiation of self from others, and emergence of representational thought and symbolic play.
Physical Development, including vision and hearing
Physical developmental delays encompass three categories: physical development, motor development, and developmental motor disorders.
Physical development refers to changes in childhood, including alterations in body structures and functions. Aspects of physical development include:
Gross and fine motor skills
The degree of quality of the child’s motor and sensory development
Health status
Physical skills or limitations
Motor development refers to motor milestones defined as the major developmental tasks of a period that depend on movement by the muscles. Gross motor development involves skills that require coordination of the large muscle groups (e.g. sitting, walking, rolling, standing). Fine motor development is concerned with the coordination of smaller muscles of the body, including the hands and face. Fine motor skills use the small muscles of both the hands and the eyes for performance.
Developmental motor disorders refer to mild to severe abnormalities of muscle tone, movement, and motor skill acquisition. These include global developmental delays, hypotonia, hypertonia, and mild neuromotor dysfunction.
Communication Development
Involves the overall developmental progress in young children in acquiring the ability to comprehend and produce messages that allow them to understand and interact with the social world. Communication development typically progresses from the development of gestural and social pre-linguistic communication to the onset of first words and production and use of language. Children who experience delays in the acquisition of speech and language skills usually follow a typical pattern of development but at a slower rate than children who are not delayed. Marked regression or loss of language can be a sign of a serious underlying medical or neurological problem and may indicate the need for a comprehensive medical, psychological, and audiologic evaluation.
Communication disorders are impairments in the ability to receive, send, process, and comprehend concepts or verbal, non-verbal, and graphic messages. A disorder may be evident in the processes of hearing, language, and/or speech. Individuals may demonstrate one or any combination of these three aspects of communication disorders.
Social-Emotional Development
Progressive change in the way that children relate to their social world and their ability to differentiate and express emotions and perceive emotional states of other individuals. Social development refers to:
Relating to others; the degree and quality of the child's relationships with parents and caregivers
Feelings about self
Social adjustment to a variety of interactions over time
Emotions reflect an individual's attempt or readiness to establish, maintain, or change the relation between him or herself and his or her environment (e.g., a child who overcomes an obstacle to a goal is likely to experience happiness); emotions become more differentiated as infants develop (e.g., crying behavior differs depending on whether the infant is hungry or angry); and, infants' strategies for regulating their emotions change over time (e.g., responses to distress develop from gaze aversion to self-soothing behaviors).
Children who are experiencing disorders or impairment in social-emotional development may exhibit patterns such as inability to form attachment relationships with caregivers, failure to develop joint-attention skills, perseverative behaviors, etc.
Adaptive Development
The development of behaviors and self-help skills that assist children in coping with the natural and social demands of the environment, including sleeping, feeding, mobility, toileting, dressing, and higher-level social interactions. A child who is experiencing delays in adaptive development has difficulty in learning and acquiring these behaviors and skills. Delays in adaptive development may be associated with delays or impairments in other areas of development, including fine and gross motor skills, oral-motor functioning, cognitive development, communication development, and social-emotional development.
Developmental Delay
Under federal regulations, each state establishes its definition of developmental delay, which can apply to children through age 9. While the majority of definitions revolve around a child not reaching developmental milestones, it is important to search for something like “developmental delay definition + [your state]” for specific details. I live in Texas, where developmental delay is defined as having a developmental delay of at least 25 percent in one or more of the following areas of development - social-emotional, self-help, communication, motor functions, or cognitive skills. A delay in expressive language must be 33 percent or more.
Individualized family service plan (IFSP)
A written plan for providing early intervention services to an infant or toddler with a disability and the infant’s or toddler’s family that is based on the evaluation and assessment, and includes:
information about the child’s status
family information
measurable results or measurable outcomes
early intervention services necessary to meet the unique needs of the child and the family
medical or other services that the child or family needs
dates and duration of services
service coordinator
steps and services to support a smooth transition to preschool services
Navigating the world of special education is further complicated by the presence of state-specific acronyms and terminology. In Texas, the Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) program addresses the needs of children and their families from birth to age three. Meanwhile, in Illinois and New York, it goes by the name Early Intervention; in California, it's referred to as Early Start, and in Florida, it’s known as Early Steps. While our goal is to develop state-specific resources in the future, for now, it's essential to grasp the foundational terminology outlined in this post. To delve deeper into the nuances specific to your state, we recommend visiting your state’s website.
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Special Education Services Terminology
Special Education
Specially designed instruction, at no cost, to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability, including services such as speech-language pathology, travel training, and vocational education, aimed at ensuring access to the general curriculum and fostering skill development in various settings. This instruction can be conducted in a classroom, in a home, in hospitals and institutions, and in other settings.
Specially designed instruction: adapting, as appropriate to the needs of an eligible child, the content, methodology, or delivery of instruction to address the unique needs of the child that result from the child’s disability and to ensure access of the child to the general curriculum, so that the child can meet the educational standards within the jurisdiction of the public agency that apply to all children.
At No Cost: all specially designed instruction is given for free. However, it doesn’t rule out occasional fees that non-disabled students or their parents typically pay as part of the regular education program.
Physical Education: the development of physical and motor fitness, fundamental motor skills and patterns, and skills in aquatics, dance, and individual and group games and sports (including intramural and lifetime sports) and includes special physical education, adapted physical education, movement education, and motor development.
Adapted Physical Education (APE): required for students with disabilities who require specially designed instruction in order to receive Physical Education. Need is determined by the IEP team, and it’s tailored individually to meet the child’s needs. APE is offered in the least restrictive environment, which can be the general PE setting, often with accommodations or aids/specialists.
Travel Training: providing instruction, as appropriate, to children with significant cognitive disabilities, and any other children with disabilities who require this instruction, to enable them to develop an awareness of the environment in which they live and learn the skills necessary to move effectively and safely from place to place within that environment (school, in the home, at work, in the community).
Vocational Education: organized educational programs that are directly related to the preparation of individuals for employment, or for additional preparation for a career not requiring a baccalaureate or advanced degree.
IEP Team
Special Education Services are services provided through the school system to school-aged children and youth (aged 3 - 21).
Special Education Eligibility
IDEA specifics 13 different disability categories for which school aged children and youth may be eligible for services. Those 13 categories are:
Autism
Autism means a developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, generally evident before age three, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance. Other characteristics often associated with autism are engagement in repetitive activities and stereotyped movements, resistance to environmental change or change in daily routines, and unusual responses to sensory experiences.
The term Autism does not apply if a child’s educational performance is adversely affected primarily because the child has an emotional disturbance.
Deaf - Blindness
Deaf-blindness means concomitant (naturally accompanying or associated) hearing and visual impairments, the combination of which causes such severe communication and other developmental and educational needs that they cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for children with deafness or children with blindness.
Deafness
Deafness means a hearing impairment that is so severe that the child is impaired in processing linguistic information through hearing, with or without amplification, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.
Emotional Disturbance
Emotional disturbance means a condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree that adversely affects a child’s educational performance:
An inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors.
An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers.
Inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances.
A general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression.
A tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems.
Emotional disturbance includes schizophrenia. The term does not apply to children who are socially maladjusted, unless it is determined that they have an emotional disturbance.
Hearing Impairment
Hearing impairment means an impairment in hearing, whether permanent or fluctuating, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance but that is not included under the definition of deafness in this section.
Intellectual Disability
Intellectual disability means significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning, existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.
Multiple Disabilities
Multiple disabilities means concomitant impairments (such as intellectual disability-blindness or intellectual disability-orthopedic impairment), the combination of which causes such severe educational needs that they cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for one of the impairments. Multiple disabilities does not include deaf-blindness.
Orthopedic Impairment
Orthopedic impairment means a severe orthopedic impairment that adversely affects a child’s educational performance. The term includes impairments caused by a congenital anomaly, impairments caused by disease (e.g., poliomyelitis, bone tuberculosis), and impairments from other causes (e.g., cerebral palsy, amputations, and fractures or burns that cause contractures).
Other Health Impairment
Other health impairment means having limited strength, vitality, or alertness, including a heightened alertness to environmental stimuli, that results in limited alertness with respect to the educational environment, that—
Is due to chronic or acute health problems such as asthma, attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, diabetes, epilepsy, a heart condition, hemophilia, lead poisoning, leukemia, nephritis, rheumatic fever, sickle cell anemia, and Tourette syndrome; and
Adversely affects a child’s educational performance.
Specific Learning Disability
Specific learning disability means a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, that may manifest itself in the imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations, including conditions such as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia.
Disorders not included: Specific learning disability does not include learning problems that are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities, of intellectual disability, of emotional disturbance, or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.
Speech or Language Impairment
Speech or language impairment means a communication disorder, such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment, or a voice impairment, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.
Traumatic Brain Injury
Traumatic brain injury means an acquired injury to the brain caused by an external physical force, resulting in total or partial functional disability or psychosocial impairment, or both, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance. Traumatic brain injury applies to open or closed head injuries resulting in impairments in one or more areas, such as cognition; language; memory; attention; reasoning; abstract thinking; judgment; problem-solving; sensory, perceptual, and motor abilities; psychosocial behavior; physical functions; information processing; and speech. Traumatic brain injury does not apply to brain injuries that are congenital or degenerative, or to brain injuries induced by birth trauma.
Visual Impairment Including Blindness
Visual impairment including blindness means an impairment in vision that, even with correction, adversely affects a child’s educational performance. The term includes both partial sight and blindness.
One important detail we discovered during the process was that if your child’s disability doesn’t fit into one of the 13 defined categories, they will be classified under “other health impairment” rather than their specific disability.
Photo by Compare Fibre on Unsplash
Individualized Education Plan/Program (IEP)
A written statement for each child with a disability that is developed, reviewed, and revised in a meeting (typically between school specialists and caregivers) and must include -
A statement of the child’s present levels of academic achievement and functional performance, including—
How the child’s disability affects the child’s involvement and progress in the general education curriculum (i.e., the same curriculum as for nondisabled children); or
For preschool children, as appropriate, how the disability affects the child’s participation in appropriate activities;
A statement of measurable annual goals, including academic and functional goals designed to—
Meet the child’s needs that result from the child’s disability to enable the child to be involved in and make progress in the general education curriculum; and
Meet each of the child’s other educational needs that result from the child’s disability;
For children with disabilities who take alternate assessments aligned to alternate academic achievement standards, a description of benchmarks or short-term objectives;
A description of how the child’s progress towards meeting the annual goals will be measured and when periodic reports on the progress the child is making toward meeting the annual goals will be provided;
A statement of the special education and related services and supplementary aids and services, based on peer-reviewed research to the extent practicable, to be provided to the child, or on behalf of the child, and a statement of the program modifications or supports for school personnel that will be provided to enable the child—
To advance appropriately toward attaining the annual goals;
To be involved in and make progress in the general education curriculum in accordance with paragraph (a)(1) of this section, and to participate in extracurricular and other nonacademic activities; and
To be educated and participate with other children with disabilities and nondisabled children in the activities described in this section;
An explanation of the extent, if any, to which the child will not participate with nondisabled children in the regular class and in the activities;
A statement of any individual appropriate accommodations that are necessary to measure the academic achievement and functional performance of the child on State and districtwide assessments and if the IEP Team determines that the child must take an alternate assessment instead of a particular State or districtwide assessment of student achievement. This must include a statement of why the child cannot participate in the regular assessment and the particular alternate assessment selected is appropriate for the child.
The projected date for the beginning of the services and modifications, and the anticipated frequency, location, and duration of those services and modifications
IEPs also include transition services beginning not later than the first IEP to be in effect when the child turns 16, or younger if determined appropriate by the IEP team, and updated annually thereafter. This must include appropriate measurable postsecondary goals based upon age-appropriate transition assessments related to training, education, employment, and where appropriate, independent living skills and the transitions services needed to assist the child in reaching those goals.
Additionally, beginning no later than one year before the child reaches the age of majority under State Law, the IEP must include a statement that the child has been informed of their rights that will transfer to the child on reaching the age of majority.
It’s important to take a moment to define and differentiate an accommodation and a modification as they relate to IEPs:
Accommodation: removing barriers to learning by changing how a student learns or gets their work done. Examples are providing an audio version of a book for a student with dyslexia or taking a test in a quiet room without distractions.
Modification: changes what a student is taught or expected to learn, creating a different standard for the student receiving them. Examples are an easier reading assignment or less homework.
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Special Education Acronyms
The number of acronyms used within special education is wild, and can be quite overwhelming. We’ve compiled as many as we could below and will link to definitions of those that require further explanation.
Government & Policy Specific Acronyms
Post Sources
https://sites.ed.gov/idea
eric.ed.gov
hhs.gov
cdc.gov
ny.gov and nyc.gov
texas.gov
congress.gov
understood.org