Terms and Definitions

Special education runs on shorthand — FAPE, LRE, PWN, ESY — and the shorthand hides precise legal definitions. This page gives plain-language meanings for the terms Alabama teachers and coordinators encounter most often. It is a quick reference, not a substitute for the controlling definitions, which live in IDEA, 34 CFR Part 300, and Alabama Administrative Code 290-8-9-.00.

• Alabama Administrative Code, rule 290-8-9-.00 (Definitions)

• IDEA, 20 U.S.C. § 1401, and 34 CFR §§ 300.4 through 300.45 (federal definitions)

• Cross-references throughout this site link each term to its controlling section

FAPE — Free Appropriate Public Education. Special education and related services, provided at public expense, that are reasonably calculated to enable the student to make progress appropriate in light of the student's circumstances. The cornerstone obligation of special education.

LRE — Least Restrictive Environment. To the maximum extent appropriate, students with disabilities are educated with students who are not disabled. Removal from regular education happens only when the disability is such that education in regular classes with supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily.

SDI — Specially Designed Instruction. Adapting what is taught and how it is taught — content, methodology, delivery — to address the student's unique disability-related needs. The defining feature of special education, and the difference between a modified curriculum and a differentiated one.

IEP — Individualized Education Program. The written plan of services, goals, accommodations, and placement developed by the IEP Team. A legal document, not a classroom organizer.

PLAAFP — Present Levels of Academic Achievement and Functional Performance. The description of the student's current performance and disability-related needs, and the foundation every measurable annual goal must connect to.

Related Services. Developmental, corrective, and supportive services a student needs to benefit from special education — speech, OT, PT, counseling, transportation, and others. Not every student who has a disability gets them: the IEP Team decides.

Supplementary Aids and Services. Supports provided in regular education and other settings so the student can be educated with nondisabled students — the LRE toolbox.

Accommodations vs. Modifications. Accommodations change how a student learns (extra time, oral presentation); modifications change what a student is expected to learn (reduced objectives). The IEP documents both; know which one you are writing, because they affect grading and assessment differently.

Consent. The parent has been fully informed, in their native language or communication mode; understands and agrees in writing; and the written consent describes the activity and lists what records will be released. Consent is voluntary and may be revoked at any time.

PWN — Prior Written Notice. The written notice the LEA must give a reasonable time before proposing or refusing to initiate or change identification, evaluation, placement, or FAPE. It is a content document — it must describe what was proposed or refused and why.

Child Find. The LEA's affirmative duty to identify, locate, and evaluate all children with disabilities in its jurisdiction, ages birth through 21, including children in private schools and homeless or migrant children.

Evaluation vs. Reevaluation. The initial procedures to decide whether a child is a child with a disability — and the repeat of those procedures at least every three years (unless parent and LEA agree it is unnecessary).

ESY — Extended School Year. Special education and related services beyond the normal school year, provided when the IEP Team determines the services are necessary for FAPE — typically based on regression and recoupment data.

AAS — Alternate Achievement Standards. Aligned standards for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities who participate in the Alabama Alternate Assessment.

SES — Special Education Services — the ALSDE division that provides technical assistance, monitoring, and support to Alabama LEAs for all of the above.

OSEP / OCR. Two federal offices: OSEP (Office of Special Education Programs, which administers IDEA) and OCR (Office for Civil Rights, which enforces Section 504 and the ADA in schools). Different offices, different complaints.

SPP / APR. The State Performance Plan and Annual Performance Report — the federal indicators (including the B-14 drop-out and B-13 transition indicators) by which Alabama's special education system is measured.

Differentiated Monitoring. ALSDE's data-driven monitoring system for Alabama LEAs, which uses the Document of Assurance and Technical Assistance form, submitted annually by September 15.

• Use these terms precisely in IEPs, notices, and parent communication

• When the precise definition matters — a dispute, an eligibility decision, a monitoring response — open the cited rule instead of relying on this page

• Check the acronym glossary in Mastering the Maze for Alabama form-specific terms

• Writing "extended time" without saying on what (accommodation ambiguity)

• Using "accommodation" and "modification" interchangeably in an IEP

• Treating a PWN as a consent form — they are different documents with different requirements

• Citing a glossary instead of the rule in formal correspondence

Alabama Administrative Code, rule 290-8-9-.00: https://admincode.legislature.state.al.us/administrative-code/290-8-9-.00 

34 CFR Subpart A — General: https://sites.ed.gov/idea/regs/a/ 

Mastering the Maze (ALSDE) — acronym list and form-specific terminology