Special Education Terms
The following is a listing of commonly used Special Education terms and their definitions.
Assistive Technology
Device – Any item, piece of equipment, or product system, whether
acquired commercially off the shelf, modified, or customized, that is
used to increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of a
child with a disability.
Behavioral Disorder - Student exhibits one or more of the
following: inability to learn, inability to build or maintain
interpersonal relationships, inappropriate types of behavior or
feelings under normal circumstances, pervasive mood of unhappiness or
depression, a tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated
with a personal or school problems.
Mental Handicap- significantly subaverage general intellectual
functioning existing with deficits in adaptive behavior and adversely
affects a child’s developmental or educational performance.
Specific Learning Disability- disorder in one or more of the following categories:
1) listening comprehension 2) written expression 3) reading
comprehension 4) reading decoding 5) math calculation 6)
math application and reasoning 7) oral communication.
Speech or Language Impairments- a communication disorder such as
stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment, or a voice
impairment, which adversely affects a child’s development or
educational performance.
Developmental Delay – a child birth through age eight who has been
identified by a multidisciplinary team as having a significant delay in
the function of one or more of the following areas:
1) cognitive development 2) physical development 3)
communicative development 4) social or emotional
development or adaptive behavior or skills development or a diagnosed
physical or medical condition that ha a high probability of resulting
in a substantial delay .
Evaluation – procedure used to assist in the determination of whether a
child has a disability and the nature and extent of the special
education and related services that the child needs.
Individual Family Service Plan ( IFSP) – plan for providing early
intervention services to a child with a disability age birth through
age two and the child’s family.
Individual Education Plan (IEP) – a written plan for a child with a
verified disability, that is developed, reviewed and revised in a
meeting in accordance with the law.
Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) – a group of people whose
responsibility is to evaluate the abilities and needs of a child
referred for evaluation and to determine whether or not the child meets
the eligibility criteria.
Paraeducator- an individual who serves under the supervision of a
certificated or licensed staff member as an assistant in the
educational process.
Student Assistance Team (SAT) – a group of persons utilizing
problem solving and intervention strategies to assist the teacher(s) in
the provision of general education.
