This article is a written transcript of the course, “Assessment for Special Education Eligibility”, presented by Lissa Power-deFur, Ph.D. on May 23, 2011.
>> Amy Hansen: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to today's Expert e-Seminar, “Assessment for Special Education Eligibility”, presented today by Dr. Lissa Power-deFur. Dr. Lissa Power-deFur serves as Professor and Graduate Coordinator in Communication Sciences and Disorders at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia. Prior to joining the Longwood faculty she served at the Virginia Department of Education as speech-language consultant, policy analyst, and special education and student services director. Lissa often presents on the provision of speech-language services within the special and general education parameters. She received her bachelors’, masters’ and doctorate in speech-language pathology at the University of Virginia. Dr. Power-deFur is an ASHA fellow. She is a regular volunteer for ASHA and her State Association. So welcome Dr. Power-deFur and thank you so much for joining us today.
[Applause]
>> Dr. Power-deFur: Thank you. Isn't that clever. I like the applause. I'm delighted to be part of the SpeechPathology.com group of presenters and to have this opportunity to talk to you this afternoon about something I spent a lot of time thinking about with my work at the Department of Education and then my work as a clinician. I'd like to start out by finding out a little bit about you all. Can you raise your hand if you're currently working in the schools? Okay. So we have got seven out of about 25 of you who are currently working in the schools. And how many of you work in other settings? Okay. That looks like a smaller number of you work in other settings. I assume those of you working in other settings make referrals to the schools and so you're interested in just how is it the schools make those decisions when it seems so clear to us. So let's move on and get started.
Learner Outcomes
One of the challenges of assessing children with speech and language impairments is that we're trying to figure out how to marry what we know about the assessment of speech and language skills with what the federal requirements are for meeting the eligibility requirements for special education. So my focus today will be on reviewing the federal requirements - exactly what is required. And then secondly I'll spend a little bit of time talking about additional requirements you'll find from different states and local school districts; however, to truly understand that you've got to look at 50 different sets of special ed. regulations and look at the special education policies and procedures in every school district. But I'll try to highlight those areas in which states and localities can alter the requirements from what those are at the federal level. ‘Alter’ probably isn't the best word - let’s say, ‘can exceed’ them. Then I will spend a lot of time talking about how we select, administer and analyze our standardized assessments. Then at the end we will look at intervention data and other informal assessment strategies we can use to help with the eligibility process. I'll answer questions at the end. Hold on to those. You can write them in the box and I can answer them at the end or I think Amy told me we can do them live. Okay.
When you finish the course you should be able to identify federal requirements associated with valuation for special ed., look at the additional requirements that come from the state or local school district, talk about best practice in administering standardized assessments and identify effective informal assessments.
Federal Requirements
All right. Let's dive right in. The federal requirements have been around a long time now. It is nearly 40 years since the Education of All Handicap's Children's Act, EHA or 91-142 was established. That was a Civil Rights law actually because children with disabilities were not being afforded a right to a public education. So that is where that fundamental feature of Free and Appropriate Public Education or FAPE came from to ensure that a child with a disability could have access to an appropriate education. The word is not ‘Cadillac’, the word is not ‘minimal’. It is ‘appropriate’ and that is the feature of making it appropriate to each child.
It is a federally funded program and states and localities must comply with the requirements IDEA to receive the funding. Despite lots of good intentions over the 30 some years Federal funds have never covered 100% of the cost to special education. It has been as low as 8% and up into the 20’s but still you find that at least two-thirds of the cost of special education falls to the states and localities. That means it is being paid one way or the other by your taxes - either your federal taxes, your state taxes or your local taxes. As a result, the nature of the funding is heavily dependent upon the attitude of the folks who manage local revenue – your local boards of supervisors, your state general assembly and Congress.
EHA to IDEA
EHA has changed over the years and now we refer to it as the Individual's with Disabilities Education Improvement Act still generally referred to as IDEIA. About every 7 years it is reauthorized. Things are added. Not much has been deleted. The fundamental principles of how we make children eligible for special education have been pretty much unchanged since 1975.
