Policies for talented students with disabilities, or twice-exceptional students, exist in very few states across the country. Historically, families of twice-exceptional students have found most of their support though implementation of Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) or 504 Accommodation plans. Yet, there is no federal mandate for gifted…

Dyslexia is a word-level reading disability that impacts decoding and encoding skills (International Dyslexia Association [IDA], 2002). The estimated prevalence of individuals impacted by dyslexia varies from 5% to 20% (Phillips & Odegard, 2017). In the United States, the primary legislation overseeing special education is the Individuals with…

The implementation of prereferral models was being discussed in educational literature as early as 1979. Over the past decade, schools in the United States have begun to adopt prereferral models to meet multiple goals, such as reducing inappropriate referrals to special education, supporting students who face academic and behavioral challenges,…

This next article in the series on evaluation under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) focuses on the common, core responsibility of school psychologists for timely completion of the initial evaluation. For this topic, first is a legal analysis and then a discussion for professional implementation that includes ethical…

This article examines the history of learning disabilities (LDs) on college campuses, from the introduction of the concept in the early 1960s to its spread throughout American higher education during the 1990s. At first, colleges offered relatively little assistance and urged students to compensate for their LDs by working harder and adopting…

The State Performance Plan/Annual Performance Report (SPP/APR) is an important tool for states to assess local education agency (LEA) implementation of IDEA. However, reviewing LEA performance on the SPP/APR indicators must not be the only tool. This Fast Five introduces five factors (plus one!) other than the SPP/APR indicators that states should…

For this 22nd article in the series reviewing recent court decisions concerning appropriate school psychology practice from both professional and legal perspectives, the topic is child find and eligibility under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), including as a secondary matter the intersecting requirement for a comprehensive…

After defining and describing the purposes of state-administered Title III, Part A programs, this two-page fact sheet provides the following data for the 2015-16 school year: (1) national percentages of English learners identified and participating in Title III-supported language instruction educational programs; (2) percentages of identified…

School psychologists are well served to stay up to date on trends in special education law, particularly with respect to determinations when school teams' decisions are challenged. This allows them to focus on proactive best practices that foster accurate specific learning disability (SLD) identification and active collaboration with parents. This…

The Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA) has synthesized key data on English learners (ELs) into two-page sheets on a variety of subjects. This fact sheet focuses on: (1) Percentage Point Difference between English Learners and English Learners with Disabilities Ages 6-21 Identified and Served under Individuals with Disabilities Education…

The purpose of this article is to provide special educators with significant and perhaps surprising recent lessons in special education law. These lessons under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act range from the threshold issues of child find and eligibility through the central obligation of…

One of the most hotly debated K-12 education issues in recent decades has been the appropriate federal role in defining how states should measure, identify, and intervene in low-performing schools. In December 2015, after more than a decade of complex debate, Congress passed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) to reauthorize the Elementary and…

This article proposes using the dimension of human resources planning (Rebore, 2011) as a vehicle to disrupt the racism and ableism in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (the "IDEA") that contributes to children of color being disproportionately overidentified into stigmatized disability categories which…

The COVID-19 pandemic has complicated the identification and delivery of special education services for students across the United States. Many students, regardless of previous disability status, are demonstrating increased academic, social-emotional, and medical needs in school in response to instructional disruptions and other impacts of the…

Subtitle VII-B of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, reauthorized in 2015 by Title IX, Part A of the Every Student Succeeds Act, guarantees educational rights and supports for students experiencing homelessness. This brief summarizes the key provisions of the McKinney-Vento Act related to the identification of children and youth…