To provide a missing piece to the legal foundation of professional development and practice for the individualized education program (IEP) process, the authors report the results of a comprehensive systematic analysis of court decisions specific to IEP-related procedural violations after the 2004 amendments of the Individuals With Disabilities…

This article provides a systematic and impartial analysis of the law, including hearing and review officer as well as judicial decisions, specific to the intersection of response to intervention (RTI) and school districts' ongoing affirmative obligation of child find. The results reveal that this intersection has not been the subject of…

Exemplifying the insufficient treatment of legal issues in refereed journals in special education and related fields, the limited legal coverage of functional behavioral assessments (FBAs) and behavior intervention plans (BIPs) tends to view the applicable case law through normative lenses. This skewed view characterizes the case law as requiring…

For this 17th article in the series reviewing recent court decisions concerning appropriate school psychology practice from both professional and legal perspectives, the topic is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act's (IDEA) central obligation, free appropriate public education (FAPE). More specifically, the focus here is procedural and…

Starting with a constructive critique of legal articles in special education journals concerning transition services under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), this article presents an empirical analysis of relevant judicial rulings for the period 1990-2016 that shows a prevailing prodistrict approach that is not otherwise…

Teachers and parents often find special education law complex and confusing. As one step for a basic foundation in special education law, a previous "TEACHING Exceptional Children" article (Zirkel, 2005) provided a snapshot of the "top five case concepts" based on 10 decisions from the Supreme Court. Each of these decisions…

Legally, the ultimate criterion for eligibility under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is whether the child needs special education. A new decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals suggests that providing various interventions and accommodations in general education might mean that a child who meets the criteria for any…

A persistent problem in the professional literature in school psychology and related fields, such as special education, is the insufficient treatment of legal issues in terms of not only quantity (e.g., Zaheer & Zirkel, 2014) but also quality (e.g., Zirkel, 2014). The quality dimension is illustrated in the coverage of the Supreme Court's…

For this 10th article in the series reviewing recent court decisions concerning appropriate school psychology practice from both professional and legal perspectives, the focus is eligibility under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). For this purpose, the courts have generally agreed that, based on the definitions in the IDEA's…

Intended as professional development for both new and experienced special educators, this article provides both the basic requirements and nuanced issues for foundational, successive, and overlapping key components under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA): (a) child find, (b) eligibility, and (c) free appropriate public…

A comprehensive search identified 42 court decisions from late 1996 to early 2014 concerning the primary modern meaning of child find under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)--whether the district had reasonable suspicion of eligibility and yet did not evaluate the child. The findings from a systematic analysis of these court…

For this ninth article in the series reviewing recent court decisions concerning appropriate school psychology practice from both professional and legal perspectives, this author provides a summary of a concussion- related case and provides responses to a series of questions by three members of the school psychology profession. The issue in this…

During the past two decades, scholars, educators, and special interest organizations, including advocacy groups, have critically examined and debated the ethical and legal use of aversive interventions with individuals with disabilities. These interventions comprise a broad spectrum of behavior management techniques including but not at all…

This article examines a critical question for the special education community: What should be the current meaning of "free appropriate public education" (FAPE) in light of not only the Supreme Court's landmark "Rowley" decision in 1982 but also developments in the 30 years since then? After synthesizing what the…

This article reports on a case that resulted in a published court decision which illustrates a dilemma at the intersection of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). On first impression, the finding that teachers were operating based on professional principle seems to validate their actions.…