NES SPECIAL EDUCATION STUDY GUIDE QUESTIONS
AND ANSWERS SURE A+
✔✔Assessment Methods - ✔✔Effective assessments align with the learning objectives,
and certain kinds of assessments fit best with certain lessons or assignments. Written
test may be the most commonly used assessment measures in a general education
classroom, but alternative assessment approaches are often more effective for
evaluating students with disabilities.
✔✔Observations - ✔✔Assessments are typically records of behaviors but can also
involve observation of the environment (e.g., ecological assessments). Highly structured
and require training to a level of high inter - rater reliability, or they may be informal
observational notes by a teacher, parent/guardian, or other member of student's IEP
team.
✔✔Achievement and aptitude tests - ✔✔Achievement test are designed to measure
academic progress-what students have learned. Aptitude test are designed to predict
academic success. Most commonly standardized test. Standardized procedures include
giving all students the same amount of time, having students take the test in the same
room, and giving students the same instructions before beginning.
✔✔Rating scales - ✔✔Is an instrument that requires an observer to evaluate a student's
behavior using an ordinal scale (e.g., never, sometimes, always). Are structured and
may be standardized so that ratings can be compared to a norm reference sample or a
criterion. The evaluations are based on raters' subjective observations, and different
raters do not always interpret the scales or rate behaviors int eh same way (e.g., one
rater may score a behavior exhibited three times each week as occurring sometimes
and another may interpret the behavior as often).
✔✔Portfolio assessments - ✔✔Are collections of a student's work systematically
collected over an extended time period. Includes many kinds of items, such as writing
samples, projects, photographs, audiotapes, or videotapes.
✔✔Performance assessments - ✔✔Best used for assessment of procedural knowledge
(e.g., skills). Well suited for evaluating motor skills and adaptive skills (e.g., ability to
,take public transportation from home to a work environment). Teacher can observe how
students perform a particular skill, such as whether they use one or two hands to
bounce a ball or whether they accurately balance a checkbook.
✔✔Curriculum-based measruement - ✔✔CBM refers to an assessment method in
which teachers regularly evaluate student performance on a particular skill (e.g.,
reading comprehension, spelling, and math). Typically, the student is tested weekly on a
small selection of material from the general education curriculum.
✔✔Selecting Appropriate Assessments - ✔✔Special education teachers must consider
the type of information needed to make the decisions that are driving the assessment,
as well as individual student characteristics. Example: behavioral assessments,
adaptive behavior scales, intelligence tests, or achievement test scores may be needed
to diagnose a particular disability.
✔✔Example of Characteristics that Teachers should consider when making a selection
includes: - ✔✔Whether the assessment instrument was designed for all/or normed for
use with similar students. Whether the instrument is reliable and valid. The length of
time the assessment requires. Whether special training is needed for administration.
Assessments may be adapted so that they are conducted in a student's home language
or preferred mode of communication (e.g., sign language).
✔✔Accommodation used for students with disabilities - ✔✔Students with learning
disabilities benefit from extended time to c complete an assessment, having a person or
a computer read the instructions and questions aloud, using a calculator for
assessments that require computation, and having the test presented via computer.
Students with intellectual disabilities benefit from extended time to complete an
assessment. Students with ADHD benefit from taking breaks during testing and a
testing environment with few distractions.
✔✔Strategies for reducing bias during assessments. - ✔✔Considering each student's
needs and background individually to ensure that assessment measures are
appropriate. Following guidelines in the IEP without introducing other accommodations
that are not specified. Recording oral responses for later review by an additional rater.
✔✔Rapport - ✔✔A close and harmonious relationship in which the people or groups
concerned understand each other's feelings or ideas and communicate well.
✔✔Strategies for establishing and maintaining rapport: - ✔✔Introducing oneself, if
necessary. Explaining to the student the goal/purpose of the assessment, providing
instructions, and ensuring that the student understands what the assessment involves.
Introducing and/or modeling any technology, including assistive technology, if
necessary. Paying careful attention to nonverbal signals such as posture, attention, and
fatigue, and adjusting the testing procedures as necessary.
,✔✔Functional Behavior Assessments - ✔✔Common tools for special educators.
✔✔Procedures for conducting FBA: - ✔✔Identifying the target behavior and defining it
in terms that are specific, observable, and measurable. Identifying factors that may
contribute to the behavior. Developing a method for collecting data regarding the
behavior and/or the contributing factors.
✔✔Competency 4 - ✔✔Requires an understanding of eligibility procedures, the IEP
components and process, the process for developing and implementing related plans
such as transition plans and behavioral intervention plans, the continuum of placements
and services available to students with disabilities, and effective strategies for selecting
and implementing curricula and technologies for students with disabilities.
✔✔Prereferral - ✔✔General education teacher often provide support and interventions
for students who are falling behind their peers academically or socially in the general
education classroom. Helps reduce the number of referrals of students who are
ultimately not eligible for special education. Prereferral interventions are conducted by a
multidisciplinary team usually composed of professionals such as special education
teachers and specialists who collaborate with a presenting teacher.
✔✔Response to interventions (RTI) - ✔✔Is a schoolwide instructional model for
preventing learning or behavioral difficulties and provides a framework for monitoring
the progress of all students, particularly those with difficulties. Provides interventions
within multi-tiered levels of instructions.
✔✔Tier 1 - ✔✔General education teachers provide evidence-based instruction or
behavioral support to all students in the classroom.
✔✔Tier 2 - ✔✔Interventions supplement the core curriculum taught or support it in the
classroom as part of the general education program.
✔✔End of a fixed duration (e.g., 12 weeks), The team examines the data to answer the
following questions: - ✔✔Is the student making good progress and should he or she
return to Tier 1-only instructions? Is the student making some progress, but not enough
to move to Tier 1? Should he or she continue in Tier 2? Is the student making very little
progress, thereby requiring him or her to be moved to Tier 3, the tertiary level with
intensive curricular interventions?
✔✔Tier 3 - ✔✔Intervention appear to meet ineffective to meet the student's needs (i.e.,
do not result in improved student behavior or increased achievement) the team uses
this information as the basis for a referral to a multidisciplinary team for a complete,
formal individualized evaluation. This referral details concerns regarding the student's
academic or behavioral performance in school.
, ✔✔Steps in conducting an evaluation: - ✔✔First step in conducting an evaluation is to
review the existing data from the parents/guardians, classroom teachers, and any
prereferral interventions. Federal law mandates that comprehensive individual
evaluation involve multiple sources of information, including a review of student records,
informal observations, and results of formal assessment instruments. The evaluation
team must then determine whether additional data are needed to identify whether the
student has a disability that requires special education and, if so make relevant
education decisions.
✔✔Assessment Involve - ✔✔Assessment generally involves gathering information
about a student's strengths and needs in all areas of suspected disability. Often
evaluations for special education eligibility include individualized intelligence test,
individualized achievement test, curriculum-based assessments, rating scales, direct
observations, ecological assessments, portfolio assessments, and/or interviews.
Assessment procedures must be free of cultural bias, and the student's performance
must be evaluated in a way that takes into account all areas of suspected disability.
✔✔When scheduling and conducting the IEP meeting, the school staff must: -
✔✔Contact the participants, including the parents/guardians. Notify parents/guardians
early enough to make sure they have an opportunity to attend. Schedule the meeting at
a time and place mutually agreeable to parents/guardians and the school. Tell the
parents/guardians the purpose, time, and location of the meeting.
✔✔Federal law - ✔✔Mandates that students with disabilities must be reevaluated at
least every three years.
✔✔IDEA Amendments - ✔✔States that data for triennial evaluation are collected only in
the areas that the IEP team members decide they need in order to determine continued
eligibility and the student's current educational needs. The student must be reevaluated
more often if conditions warrant or if the student's parents or an educator request and
updated evaluation.
✔✔The use of Assessments to inform decision making - ✔✔The comprehensive
evaluation provides the IEP team members with assessment data used to determine a
student's eligibility for special education services and, if so, the types of environment
and services that will vest meet the student's strengths and needs. At the eligibility
meeting, the special education teacher might discuss the results of formal and informal
tests with the parents/guardians and other professionals.
✔✔When the IEP team is determining program and placement decisions, they discuss
assessment results in the contest of the: - ✔✔Students strengths. Parents'/guardians'
concern and ideas for enhancing their child's education. Results of recent evaluations or
reevaluations. Student's performance on state and district-wide tests. Special factors to
be considered (as defined in the next sections). Supports the student needs to advance
toward the annual goals. Be involved in and progress in the general curriculum.
AND ANSWERS SURE A+
✔✔Assessment Methods - ✔✔Effective assessments align with the learning objectives,
and certain kinds of assessments fit best with certain lessons or assignments. Written
test may be the most commonly used assessment measures in a general education
classroom, but alternative assessment approaches are often more effective for
evaluating students with disabilities.
✔✔Observations - ✔✔Assessments are typically records of behaviors but can also
involve observation of the environment (e.g., ecological assessments). Highly structured
and require training to a level of high inter - rater reliability, or they may be informal
observational notes by a teacher, parent/guardian, or other member of student's IEP
team.
✔✔Achievement and aptitude tests - ✔✔Achievement test are designed to measure
academic progress-what students have learned. Aptitude test are designed to predict
academic success. Most commonly standardized test. Standardized procedures include
giving all students the same amount of time, having students take the test in the same
room, and giving students the same instructions before beginning.
✔✔Rating scales - ✔✔Is an instrument that requires an observer to evaluate a student's
behavior using an ordinal scale (e.g., never, sometimes, always). Are structured and
may be standardized so that ratings can be compared to a norm reference sample or a
criterion. The evaluations are based on raters' subjective observations, and different
raters do not always interpret the scales or rate behaviors int eh same way (e.g., one
rater may score a behavior exhibited three times each week as occurring sometimes
and another may interpret the behavior as often).
✔✔Portfolio assessments - ✔✔Are collections of a student's work systematically
collected over an extended time period. Includes many kinds of items, such as writing
samples, projects, photographs, audiotapes, or videotapes.
✔✔Performance assessments - ✔✔Best used for assessment of procedural knowledge
(e.g., skills). Well suited for evaluating motor skills and adaptive skills (e.g., ability to
,take public transportation from home to a work environment). Teacher can observe how
students perform a particular skill, such as whether they use one or two hands to
bounce a ball or whether they accurately balance a checkbook.
✔✔Curriculum-based measruement - ✔✔CBM refers to an assessment method in
which teachers regularly evaluate student performance on a particular skill (e.g.,
reading comprehension, spelling, and math). Typically, the student is tested weekly on a
small selection of material from the general education curriculum.
✔✔Selecting Appropriate Assessments - ✔✔Special education teachers must consider
the type of information needed to make the decisions that are driving the assessment,
as well as individual student characteristics. Example: behavioral assessments,
adaptive behavior scales, intelligence tests, or achievement test scores may be needed
to diagnose a particular disability.
✔✔Example of Characteristics that Teachers should consider when making a selection
includes: - ✔✔Whether the assessment instrument was designed for all/or normed for
use with similar students. Whether the instrument is reliable and valid. The length of
time the assessment requires. Whether special training is needed for administration.
Assessments may be adapted so that they are conducted in a student's home language
or preferred mode of communication (e.g., sign language).
✔✔Accommodation used for students with disabilities - ✔✔Students with learning
disabilities benefit from extended time to c complete an assessment, having a person or
a computer read the instructions and questions aloud, using a calculator for
assessments that require computation, and having the test presented via computer.
Students with intellectual disabilities benefit from extended time to complete an
assessment. Students with ADHD benefit from taking breaks during testing and a
testing environment with few distractions.
✔✔Strategies for reducing bias during assessments. - ✔✔Considering each student's
needs and background individually to ensure that assessment measures are
appropriate. Following guidelines in the IEP without introducing other accommodations
that are not specified. Recording oral responses for later review by an additional rater.
✔✔Rapport - ✔✔A close and harmonious relationship in which the people or groups
concerned understand each other's feelings or ideas and communicate well.
✔✔Strategies for establishing and maintaining rapport: - ✔✔Introducing oneself, if
necessary. Explaining to the student the goal/purpose of the assessment, providing
instructions, and ensuring that the student understands what the assessment involves.
Introducing and/or modeling any technology, including assistive technology, if
necessary. Paying careful attention to nonverbal signals such as posture, attention, and
fatigue, and adjusting the testing procedures as necessary.
,✔✔Functional Behavior Assessments - ✔✔Common tools for special educators.
✔✔Procedures for conducting FBA: - ✔✔Identifying the target behavior and defining it
in terms that are specific, observable, and measurable. Identifying factors that may
contribute to the behavior. Developing a method for collecting data regarding the
behavior and/or the contributing factors.
✔✔Competency 4 - ✔✔Requires an understanding of eligibility procedures, the IEP
components and process, the process for developing and implementing related plans
such as transition plans and behavioral intervention plans, the continuum of placements
and services available to students with disabilities, and effective strategies for selecting
and implementing curricula and technologies for students with disabilities.
✔✔Prereferral - ✔✔General education teacher often provide support and interventions
for students who are falling behind their peers academically or socially in the general
education classroom. Helps reduce the number of referrals of students who are
ultimately not eligible for special education. Prereferral interventions are conducted by a
multidisciplinary team usually composed of professionals such as special education
teachers and specialists who collaborate with a presenting teacher.
✔✔Response to interventions (RTI) - ✔✔Is a schoolwide instructional model for
preventing learning or behavioral difficulties and provides a framework for monitoring
the progress of all students, particularly those with difficulties. Provides interventions
within multi-tiered levels of instructions.
✔✔Tier 1 - ✔✔General education teachers provide evidence-based instruction or
behavioral support to all students in the classroom.
✔✔Tier 2 - ✔✔Interventions supplement the core curriculum taught or support it in the
classroom as part of the general education program.
✔✔End of a fixed duration (e.g., 12 weeks), The team examines the data to answer the
following questions: - ✔✔Is the student making good progress and should he or she
return to Tier 1-only instructions? Is the student making some progress, but not enough
to move to Tier 1? Should he or she continue in Tier 2? Is the student making very little
progress, thereby requiring him or her to be moved to Tier 3, the tertiary level with
intensive curricular interventions?
✔✔Tier 3 - ✔✔Intervention appear to meet ineffective to meet the student's needs (i.e.,
do not result in improved student behavior or increased achievement) the team uses
this information as the basis for a referral to a multidisciplinary team for a complete,
formal individualized evaluation. This referral details concerns regarding the student's
academic or behavioral performance in school.
, ✔✔Steps in conducting an evaluation: - ✔✔First step in conducting an evaluation is to
review the existing data from the parents/guardians, classroom teachers, and any
prereferral interventions. Federal law mandates that comprehensive individual
evaluation involve multiple sources of information, including a review of student records,
informal observations, and results of formal assessment instruments. The evaluation
team must then determine whether additional data are needed to identify whether the
student has a disability that requires special education and, if so make relevant
education decisions.
✔✔Assessment Involve - ✔✔Assessment generally involves gathering information
about a student's strengths and needs in all areas of suspected disability. Often
evaluations for special education eligibility include individualized intelligence test,
individualized achievement test, curriculum-based assessments, rating scales, direct
observations, ecological assessments, portfolio assessments, and/or interviews.
Assessment procedures must be free of cultural bias, and the student's performance
must be evaluated in a way that takes into account all areas of suspected disability.
✔✔When scheduling and conducting the IEP meeting, the school staff must: -
✔✔Contact the participants, including the parents/guardians. Notify parents/guardians
early enough to make sure they have an opportunity to attend. Schedule the meeting at
a time and place mutually agreeable to parents/guardians and the school. Tell the
parents/guardians the purpose, time, and location of the meeting.
✔✔Federal law - ✔✔Mandates that students with disabilities must be reevaluated at
least every three years.
✔✔IDEA Amendments - ✔✔States that data for triennial evaluation are collected only in
the areas that the IEP team members decide they need in order to determine continued
eligibility and the student's current educational needs. The student must be reevaluated
more often if conditions warrant or if the student's parents or an educator request and
updated evaluation.
✔✔The use of Assessments to inform decision making - ✔✔The comprehensive
evaluation provides the IEP team members with assessment data used to determine a
student's eligibility for special education services and, if so, the types of environment
and services that will vest meet the student's strengths and needs. At the eligibility
meeting, the special education teacher might discuss the results of formal and informal
tests with the parents/guardians and other professionals.
✔✔When the IEP team is determining program and placement decisions, they discuss
assessment results in the contest of the: - ✔✔Students strengths. Parents'/guardians'
concern and ideas for enhancing their child's education. Results of recent evaluations or
reevaluations. Student's performance on state and district-wide tests. Special factors to
be considered (as defined in the next sections). Supports the student needs to advance
toward the annual goals. Be involved in and progress in the general curriculum.
