Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA): A set of scientific principles and guidelines which uses direct observation, measurement, collection of data, and analysis of the relationship between the environment and behavior. In programming for students with autism, ABA employs intensive, highly structured teaching approaches where skills are broken down into their simplest most manageable form.

Accommodations: Techniques and materials that allow individuals with disabilities to complete school or work with greater ease and effectiveness. Examples may include spell checkers, tape recorders, and expanded time for completing assignments.

Adaptive Physical Education(APE): A diversified program of physical education having the same goals and objectives as general physical education, but modified when necessary to meet the unique documented special need of each student.

Alternative Assessment: An alternative to conventional means of assessing achievement; usually using something other than a paper and pencil test, such as oral testing or work sample review.

Alternate Proficiency Assessment (APA): A portfolio assessment designed to measure progress toward achieving New Jersey's state educational standards for those students with severe disabilities who are unable to participate in the state's standardized testing regimen.  The APA must meet specific (NJ DOE) standards and be approved by NJ DOE.

Assistive Technology (AT): Any item, piece of equipment, or product system that is used to increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities.

Auditory Discrimination: The ability to recognize, compare, and differentiate the discrete sounds in words and background noise.

Auditory Memory: The ability to remember something heard some time in the past (long-term auditory memory); or to recall something heard very recently (short-term auditory memory).

AYP: Adequate Yearly Progress - Under the No Child Left Behind laws, adequate yearly progress (AYP) is required for students in public education. The states must ensure that all local schools demonstrate AYP through a statewide accountability system. The school can demonstrate AYP by 95% participation on statewide assessments and progress in relation to a state-imposed objective. Separate measurable objectives for achievement must be shown for students with disabilities under IDEA.

Behavior Modification: A technique intended to alter behavior through positive reinforcement of appropriate behavior, with the objective to extinguish undesirable behavior

Behavioral Intervention Plan (BIP): A collaborative plan between the district, family, student and teacher, in either the general education or special education environment that describes positive behavioral interventions and other strategies to prevent and control unacceptable behaviors.  May be part of I&RS committee recommendations.

Behaviorist: A term commonly used to identify a certified professional who uses observable and measureable aspects of behavior to improve an individual's behavior.

Child Study Team (CST): Consists of a school psychologist, a learning disabilities teacher/consultant, school social worker, and when needed, a speech-language specialist, responsible for conducting evaluations to determine eligibility for special education and related services for students with disabilities; case management; facilitating compliance of NJ Special Education Administrative Code..

Cognitive Ability (IQ): The cognitive, intellectual or innate ability measured by standardized tests to identify skills related to learning or potential. Cognitive ability is often broken down into components such as verbal skills, non-verbal skills, processing speed and/or working memory.

Compensatory Strategies: Ways in which a student or teacher is taught to manage a student’s learning problems within a classroom or therapeutic setting.  This may be done  by manipulating and emphasizing strengths as a way to work around deficit skills.

Decoding: The process of acquiring meaning from spoken, written, or printed symbols used in receptive language.

Developmental Delay: Failure to meet expected developmental milestones in one or more of the following areas: physical, social, play skills, emotional, intellectual, speech and language and/or adaptive development. Developmental delay is usually a diagnosis made by a doctor based on strict guidelines.

Direct Instruction: A method of teaching that provides explicit direction to the student by the teacher.

Discrimination: The process of differentiating between and/or among separate stimuli, either visually or auditorially.

Due Process: A defined procedure to settle a dispute between the parent and the school.

Educational Evaluation: An assessment of a student based on multiple tests, analysis of class work, classroom observation, and teacher input intended to determine levels of achievement in certain academic areas, as well as the student's learning style and academic abilities.

Encoding: Spelling

Expressive Language: Communication through speech, writing, and/or gestures.

Extended School Year (ESY): Extended school year services outside the normal school calendar hours are considered and discussed at the annual IEP review meeting.

Executive Functioning: Executive Functioning comprises those skills that allow an individual to interact with the environment effectively and efficiently. They include assessing the overall situation, setting goals, devising a plan to reach those goals, staying on track, and monitoring one's own performance. They also include regulating one's actions and responses.

Fine Motor Skills: The use of small muscles to complete precise tasks such as writing, drawing, buttoning, opening jars, and assembling puzzles.

Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA): A process to determine which behaviors are limiting educational progress; to design interventions that decrease target behaviors; and to promote appropriate behavior(s) through positive behavioral supports.

General Education (GE): An educational program which follows the regular education programs which follow the core curriculum content standards.

Gross Motor Skills: The use of large muscles for activities involving strength and balance, such as walking, running and climbing.

IEP Team: The group of individuals as specified by NJ Special Education Administrative Code who are responsible for the development, review and revision of the student's individualized education program.

In-Class Resource: Programs taught within the general education classroom environment, and by a general education teacher and the special education teacher.  The student has to meet the general education curriculum requirements for the grade or subject being taught.   There may be modifications to the instructional strategies or testing procedures which would be listed in the student's IEP.

Inclusion: The practice of placing a student who has special education needs into general education classrooms for a least part of the student's educational program.

Individualized Education Plan (IEP): The written educational program designed for each classified student, incorporating information, as specified by NJ DOE Special Education Administrative Code, such as:   educational goals (long-term and short-term), the duration of the program, and provisions for evaluating the program's effectiveness and the student's performance.

Individual Service Plan (ISP): A written educational plan developed in accordance with NJ DOE Special Education Administrative Coder to support classified students in non-public schools.

Learning Styles: The ways in which a student best understands and retains learning, (e.g., through visual, auditory, kinesthetic, or combined modalities. Approaches to assessment or instruction emphasize the variations in modalities, temperament, attitude, and preferred reflective/impulsive or verbal/spatial dimensions.

Least Restrictive Environment (LRE): To the maximum extent appropriate, students with disabilities are educated with students who are not disabled. Special classes, separate schooling, or other removal of students with disabilities from the regular educational environment occurs only when the nature and severity of the disability is such that education in regular classes with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily.

Manifestation Determination: In connection with the discipline of students with disabilities, a professional determination regarding whether the misconduct at issue was either a manifestation of the disability or the result of an inappropriate placement.

Pre-Referral Process: An informal procedure in which staff members and parents develop intervention strategies to assist a student who is having difficulty in learning, behavior or socialization to function in the general education classroom.  Generally precedes the formal I&RS process.

Psychiatric Evaluation: An evaluation by a licensed psychiatric medical doctor designed to diagnose any number of emotional, behavioral, or developmental disorders. An evaluation of a child or adolescent is made based on behaviors present and in relation to physical, genetic, environmental, social, and cognitive (thinking), emotional, and educational components that may be affected as a result of the behaviors presented.

Psychological Evaluation: The evaluation of a student's intellectual, behavioral, social, and emotional characteristics by a certified school psychologist.

Related Services: Services that are provided to help classified students benefit from special education. The services are specified in the student's IEP and are provided in conjunction with the special education program. Some examples of related services include: counseling services, occupational therapy, physical therapy, parent training, social work, speech/language services, and transportation.

Resource Center Replacement Programs (RC): The subject is taught by the special education teacher. The resource center instruction includes individual and small group instruction.

Response to Intervention (RTI): The Response to Intervention (RTI) model for school-age children who are at-risk for learning disabilities emphasizes pre-referral prevention and intervention. RTI can be distinguished from traditional methods of identifying learning disabilities in that it allows early and intensive interventions based on learning characteristics and does not wait for children to fail before providing necessary services and supports. The major premise of RTI is that early intervening services can both prevent academic problems for many students who experience learning difficulties and determine which students actually have learning disabilities, as distinct from those whose underachievement can be attributed to other factors such as inadequate instruction.

Although several variations of the model have been proposed, in general RTI is based upon three components:

a. the use of multiple tiers of increasingly intense interventions;

b. a problem-solving approach to identify and evaluate instructional strategies; and

c. an integrated data collection and assessment system to monitor student progress and

guide decisions at every level.

Section 504: A federal law designed to protect the rights of individuals with medical disabilities in programs and activities that receive federal funds from the U.S. Department of Education (ED). Section 504 provides: "No otherwise qualified individual with a disability in the United States. . . shall solely by reason of her or his disability, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance ..."

Self Contained Programs (SC): Taught by the special education teacher, this is considered a special classroom program that serves students with similar educational needs.  Instruction is usually provided with an alternative curriculum based upon the nature or severity of the student's disability and in accordance with the student's IEP goals and objectives.

Standardized Tests Norm Referenced Test: Are designed to give a measure of an individual student’s performance that can be compared with results from a large population of students of similar ages or grades. Since the same test is given to large numbers of students throughout the country, a common yardstick or "standard" of measure can be derived to give evaluators a picture of the skills and abilities of students.

Supported Instruction: The support of a student's education in the general education class by a paraprofessional.

Transition: A coordinated set of activities for a student, designed within an outcome-oriented process that promotes movement from school to post-school activities, including post-secondary education, vocational training, integrated employment (including supported employment), continuing and adult education, adult services, independent living, or community participation. Transition services for students with disabilities may be special education, if provided as specially designed instruction, or related services, if required to assist a student with a disability to benefit from special education.

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI): The physical damage to brain tissue or structure that occurs before, during, or after birth that is verified by EEG, MRI, CAT, or a similar examination rather than by observation or performance.

Vocational Assessment: Assessment to determine the eligibility and appropriate programming for students receiving vocational education, including assessment of skills, aptitudes, interests, work ethic and social skills.