Principals play a critical role in creating inclusive schools for students with disabilities, but few studies focus on how principals foster meaningful engagement for parents of children with disabilities, especially within Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings where important education decisions are made. Research focused on principal…

The central school district obligation for disciplinary changes in placement under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is to answer the question of whether the conduct at issue is a manifestation of the individual student's disability. School psychologists often play a key role in this team-based manifestation determination…

Communicative competence for people who use augmentative and alternative communication consists of four interrelated domains: linguistic, strategic, social, and operational. Ongoing assessment and progress monitoring within these domains are crucial to (a) providing information to teach targeted skills in a manner contextualized within the…

The Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) ensures educational equity for multilingual learners through supporting school districts and charter schools to develop, implement and evaluate research-based language instruction educational programs (LIEPs) so that multilingual learners, including students with English learner (EL) status, attain…

The purpose of this essay is to identify and interrogate listening practices, which can restrict and facilitate educators' capacity to authentically care for neurodiverse students and their families. We reconceptualize listening as integral to consciousness formation by unveiling our own listening experiences as parents and collaborative…

Through effective communication and proper accommodations, adolescents with chronic illnesses can have their physical, cognitive, social, and emotional needs met at school.

When a student exhibits challenging classroom behaviors that are resistant to traditional classroom management systems, his/her individualized education program (IEP) team conducts a functional behavior assessment (FBA). The FBA process is a series of assessments designed to identify the function of the student's behavior. This is done by…

There is a notable lack of opportunity for students in pre-service professional training programs and faculty in higher education to collaborate and work together, across disciplines within a common area of professional expertise. In this case, a faculty learning community (FLC) was formed to create a set of video-based simulations based on…

There continues to be confusion among some educators and staff in State Education Agencies (SEAs) and Local Education Agencies (LEAs) about what is an accommodation and what is a modification. This confusion about accommodations and modifications happens in how these words are used in both instruction and assessment. The confusion is further…

The National Technical Assistance Center on Transition: the Collaborative (NTACT:C) Collaborative Assessment Guide for Transition Planning (CAG) is intended to help students, family members, educators, vocational rehabilitation counselors, human services and health agency staff, and other partners develop a coordinated assessment approach for…

Pediatric inflammatory bowel disease is on the rise. School psychologists must understand the significant physical, emotional, and psychological effects of this condition to be effective advocates for students and their families, and to conduct well-informed, comprehensive evaluations for this population. This article discusses the academic,…

This paper explores methods by which the Individualized Education Plan (IEP) development process can be improved through the use of systems-based thinking, specifically through the use of Gittell's (2016) Relational Coordination Model. IEP development meetings have been described as meaningless rituals where parents often leave feeling ostracized…

Arts Education Partnership (AEP) partner organizations work to promote high-quality arts learning opportunities that align with college, career and citizenship readiness goals. AEP Success Stories provide detailed information on programs with the potential to be replicated in communities across the country. This Success Story discusses Everyday…

In 1974, the Education for all Handicapped Protection Act was signed into law by President Gerald Ford. This law which was renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1990, established a federal entitlement to special education for eligible students with disabilities. In 1982 and again in 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court…

In some instances, a local school district may determine that it cannot provide free appropriate public education (FAPE) for a student with a disability within their district. In partnership with the student's family and teachers, the district may decide that the student would be best served in a private school or facility better suited to meet…