Individualized Education Program Course

Lesson 1 • Core Legal Principles and Definitions

Defines free appropriate public education, least restrictive environment, and related key terms. These definitions anchor all subsequent IEP decision-making.

Lesson 2 • Ethical Standards in Special Education

Applies professional ethics codes to real IEP scenarios involving confidentiality and equity. Bridges legal compliance with moral obligations to students and families.

Lesson 3 • History of Special Education Rights

Traces landmark legislation that created enforceable rights for students with disabilities. Provides context for every procedural requirement encountered in IEP work.

Lesson 4 • Procedural Safeguards for Families

Covers parental rights, consent procedures, and dispute resolution options. Ensures practitioners protect family rights throughout the IEP process.

Lesson 1 • Eligibility Determination Meetings

Guides teams through the structured process of making and documenting eligibility decisions. Ensures decisions are data-driven, compliant, and clearly communicated to families.

Lesson 2 • Referral and Pre-Referral Processes

Explains how students are identified and referred for special education evaluation. Establishes the procedural gateway before formal assessment begins.

Lesson 3 • Overview of Disability Categories

Surveys all federally recognized disability categories and their defining characteristics. Grounds eligibility decisions in accurate categorical understanding.

Lesson 4 • Interpreting Evaluation Reports

Teaches practitioners to read psychoeducational and specialist reports critically. Accurate interpretation prevents misclassification and drives appropriate goal-setting.

Lesson 1 • Gathering and Organizing Data Sources

Identifies formal and informal data sources appropriate for PLAAFP development. Teaches systematic data organization before writing begins.

Lesson 2 • Writing Functional Performance Statements

Addresses communication, social, behavioral, and daily living performance areas. Ensures non-academic needs are documented with equal rigor.

Lesson 3 • Writing Academic Performance Statements

Applies data to craft precise, measurable academic performance descriptions. Directly informs academic goal development in the next chapter.

Lesson 4 • Evaluating and Revising PLAAFP Quality

Uses rubrics and peer review to identify vague, deficit-focused, or incomplete statements. Builds editing skills that improve IEP quality across all future documents.

Lesson 1 • Writing Academic Goals Across Domains

Applies the goal formula to reading, math, and writing domains with domain-specific examples. Builds fluency in academic goal writing before moving to functional areas.

Lesson 2 • Short-Term Objectives and Benchmarks

Explains when objectives are required and how to sequence them as steps toward annual goals. Provides a scaffold for students who need incremental progress tracking.

Lesson 3 • Writing Functional and Behavioral Goals

Extends goal-writing skills to communication, social, behavioral, and adaptive domains. Ensures the full range of student needs is addressed with measurable targets.

Lesson 4 • Aligning Goals to Standards and Transition

Connects annual goals to grade-level standards and post-secondary transition outcomes. Ensures goals are ambitious, relevant, and legally defensible.

Lesson 1 • Related Services Selection and Justification

Covers speech-language, occupational, physical, and other related services and their eligibility criteria. Teaches teams to justify related service decisions with assessment evidence.

Lesson 2 • Documenting Service Frequency and Duration

Teaches precise documentation of service minutes, location, and grouping in the IEP. Prevents compliance errors that arise from ambiguous service descriptions.

Lesson 3 • Types of Special Education Services

Distinguishes direct instruction, co-teaching, consultation, and resource models. Provides the service vocabulary needed for accurate IEP documentation.

Lesson 4 • Least Restrictive Environment Decision-Making

Applies LRE analysis to placement decisions using a continuum-of-services framework. Ensures placement decisions are individualized, justified, and documented.

Lesson 1 • Implementing and Monitoring Accommodations

Establishes systems for communicating, implementing, and tracking accommodation effectiveness across settings. Closes the loop between IEP documentation and classroom practice.

Lesson 2 • Accommodations Versus Modifications Defined

Clarifies the critical distinction between accommodations that provide access and modifications that alter content expectations. Prevents misapplication that can harm student outcomes.

Lesson 3 • Assessment Accommodations and Testing Protocols

Addresses accommodations for standardized and classroom assessments, including state testing requirements. Ensures students access assessments fairly without compromising test validity.

Lesson 4 • Assistive Technology Evaluation and Selection

Guides teams through AT consideration, evaluation, and selection using a feature-matching process. Connects AT decisions to PLAAFP data and annual goals.

Lesson 1 • Transition Services and Agency Coordination

Identifies transition services, community agencies, and interagency coordination strategies. Builds the professional network needed to support seamless post-school transitions.

Lesson 2 • Post-Secondary Goals and Course of Study

Teaches writing measurable post-secondary goals in education, employment, and independent living. Aligns the student's course of study to stated post-secondary outcomes.

Lesson 3 • Legal Requirements for Transition Planning

Specifies the age of onset, required components, and documentation standards for transition IEPs. Establishes the compliance baseline for all transition planning work.

Lesson 4 • Student-Led IEP Meetings in Transition

Prepares students to lead or actively participate in their own transition IEP meetings. Builds self-determination skills that are central to post-secondary success.

Lesson 1 • Reporting Progress to Families

Covers legal requirements and best practices for communicating progress to parents at required intervals. Builds family trust through transparent, jargon-free reporting.

Lesson 2 • Progress Monitoring Fundamentals

Introduces data-based decision-making frameworks and the role of progress monitoring in IEP accountability. Establishes the measurement mindset applied throughout the chapter.

Lesson 3 • Curriculum-Based Measurement Techniques

Teaches CBM administration and scoring for reading, math, and writing goal areas. Provides efficient, reliable tools for tracking progress toward annual goals.

Lesson 4 • Behavioral and Functional Progress Monitoring

Extends monitoring skills to behavioral, social, and functional goal areas using observation tools. Ensures non-academic goals receive the same data rigor as academic goals.