Assistive Technology (AT): Any item a child needs to increase, maintain or improve how the child does in school. AT includes low-tech, and high-tech items, from a calculator to a computer. AT also can mean services a child needs to help in choosing, getting, or using the item.
Behavioral Intervention Plan (BIP): The IEP Team makes a plan to help prevent problem behaviors. The plan helps a child learn new appropriate behaviors. A positive behavior plan is not a list of punishments. The plan uses information from a functional behavioral assessment.
Consent: The parent tells the school in writing the parent understands and agrees to what the school plans to do. The consent form says the parent understands consent is voluntary, and the parent can take it back at any time before the school does what it plans to do. Parents can revoke the consent, but it does not cancel what the LEA has already done.
Evaluation: When a professional gathers information about a child to decide if the child qualifies for special education or the kind and amount of services the child needs. Evaluation can be testing, observing, or talking to people who work with the child.
Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE): Every child who is eligible for special education must receive a FAPE which means the school cannot charge for the child’s education, and that education must enable the child to be involved in, and make progress in, the general education curriculum.
Functional Behavioral Assessment (FBA): The IEP Team finds out what makes the child keep doing problem behaviors and how to help the child learn how to behave differently.
General education curriculum: What children without disabilities learn in the regular education classroom.
Home-based schooling: Parents choose to teach their child at home instead of sending their child to school to learn basic subjects.
Homebound schooling: When the child’s IEP Team decides it is appropriate, the school teaches a child at home. The IEP Team’s decision must be based on the child’s needs.
Individualized Education Program (IEP): The plan developed by the child’s IEP team which indicates the child’s annual goals, and specifies the special education and related services which the child will receive.
LEA representative: A person on the IEP Team who has knowledge about, and can commit the school’s resources so that the child receives the IEP services. All IEP meetings must have an LEA representative.
Least Restrictive Environment (LRE): LRE is a concept referring to the extent of removal of a child from education with children who do not have disabilities as little as possible.
Placement: The child’s setting (regular class, resource room, self-contained class), and the school building the child attends for receiving special education.
Related Services: Things a child may need to benefit from special education. They are included in the IEP. Examples of related services are occupational therapy and physical therapy.
Special Education: Specially designed instruction to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability. The services are provided at no cost to the parents. The services can be provided in many different settings.
Supplementary Aids and Services: Services and supports provided in regular education classes and other settings to help a child with a disability be educated with children who do not have disabilities as much as is appropriate.
Transition: Transition is the term for preparing a child for life after high school. Transition planning is a required part of every child’s IEP starting at age 14. Transition planning is also required for every child moving from Birth to Three programs to a school’s Early Childhood special education. Sometimes transition planning happens when a child moves from one grade to the next, or one school to the next. Transition can also mean moving from one class to the next class in school.
Wisconsin Alternate Assessment (WAA): State guidelines for testing children with disabilities who cannot take the regular state tests.
