Glossary

B.1Terms in alphabetical order (218 terms)

Above-level testing

Administering a test designed for older students to an advanced student to gauge how far ahead the student is.(Ch. 12)

Acceleration

Delivering content to a student at a younger age or a faster pace than usual, such as taking a subject with a higher grade.(Ch. 12 Ch. 15)

Accommodation

A change in presentation or response mode that does not alter what a test measures.(Ch. 3 Ch. 15)

Adaptive behavior

The conceptual, social and practical skills a person performs in everyday life.(Ch. 3 Ch. 7)

Advanced Learning Plan (ALP)

An individual document for a gifted student that specifies areas of strength, measurable goals in those areas, social-emotional goals, and how progress will be monitored.(Ch. 15)

Age equivalent

The age at which the average raw score of children equals the student's raw score; it does not mean that the student's skills resemble those of children of that age.(Ch. 2)

Aimline

A line on a progress-monitoring graph that connects the starting level to the goal, against which the student's data points are compared.(Ch. 4 Ch. 15)

Alternate assessment

In the U.S. system: an achievement test based on alternate achievement standards for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities; it is not what Chapter 5 means by “alternative methods.”(Ch. 5)

Anchoring

Allowing the first idea that occurs to the evaluator to govern the interpretation of everything that follows.(Ch. 14)

Arithmetic fluency

Performing basic arithmetic facts and operations both accurately and quickly.(Ch. 8)

Assessment and diagnosis team

The school team that determines eligibility under Saudi regulations; it includes members from the school leadership, special education, general education and counseling, along with specialists and the parent.(Ch. 15)

Assessment protocol

A preplanned set of tools and procedures, each of which answers a specific assessment question.(Ch. 13)

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

A neurodevelopmental disorder marked by a persistent pattern of inattention, hyperactivity-impulsivity, or both.(Ch. 10)

Audiogram

A graph showing the softest sound a person can hear at different frequencies in each ear.(Ch. 11)

Auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder

A disorder in which the inner ear functions but the signal is not transmitted to the brain in a synchronized way, so speech understanding is poorer than the audiogram would predict.(Ch. 11)

Augmentative and alternative communication

Means that supplement or replace speech, such as signs, pictures and speech-generating devices.(Ch. 11)

Authentic assessment

Assessment that asks students to perform tasks resembling real-life tasks, scored with rubrics.(Ch. 5)

Basal

The number of consecutive correct responses after which the student is assumed to know the preceding items and is credited with them.(Ch. 3)

Base rate

The proportion of the norming sample showing a given difference or pattern, which indicates whether the difference is rare or common.(Ch. 2)

Baseline

The initial measurements gathered before new instruction begins, against which later progress is compared.(Ch. 4 Ch. 15)

Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills (BICS)

The language of everyday conversation, in which a second-language learner reaches fluency close to that of peers in about two years.(Ch. 14)

Behavior function

What a behavior achieves for the person, such as gaining attention or escaping a task.(Ch. 5)

Behavior intervention plan

A plan based on the results of a functional assessment that teaches the student a replacement behavior serving the same function and changes the conditions that trigger the problem behavior.(Ch. 5)

Biopsychosocial model

A model that views disability as the outcome of an interaction between an individual's health condition and environmental and personal factors.(Ch. 1)

Bone conduction

Transmission of sound to the inner ear through the bones of the skull, bypassing the outer and middle ear.(Ch. 11)

Borderline intellectual functioning

Intellectual functioning below average yet above the range of intellectual disability. The DSM lists it among conditions that may be a focus of clinical attention rather than as a disorder, and “slow learning” has no counterpart category in current classification systems.(Ch. 6 Ch. 7)

Broadband scale

A rating scale that covers many behavioral and emotional areas at once.(Ch. 3)

Camouflaging

A person's attempts to conceal their traits by imitating others and memorizing ready-made phrases for social situations; it is more common among females.(Ch. 9 Ch. 13)

Catatonia

Freezing of movement, holding fixed postures, extreme slowing, or purposeless movements; it may accompany autism and calls for urgent medical referral.(Ch. 9)

Ceiling

The point at which administration stops once the discontinue rule is met; the student is assumed to fail all items beyond it.(Ch. 3)

Ceiling effect

A test's inability to distinguish among high performers because it contains too few difficult items.(Ch. 12)

Cerebral visual impairment

Impairment in the brain's processing of what the eyes see, with the eyes themselves intact or nearly so.(Ch. 11)

CHC theory

A hierarchical model of cognitive abilities comprising a general factor, broad abilities and narrow abilities.(Ch. 3)

Chromosomal microarray

A genetic test that detects small deletions or duplications of chromosomal material that conventional karyotyping cannot see.(Ch. 7)

Co-occurrence

The presence of another disorder alongside autism at the same time, such as intellectual disability, ADHD or anxiety; each is diagnosed and planned for.(Ch. 9)

Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP)

The language of learning and abstract concepts; it takes roughly five to seven years to acquire.(Ch. 14)

Cognitive Proficiency Index, CPI

A composite score derived from working memory and processing speed subtests, compared with the General Ability Index to describe an uneven profile.(Ch. 12 Ch. 13)

Cohen's kappa

An index of agreement between observers that removes agreement expected by chance; it is more accurate than simple percentage agreement when the behavior is very rare or very frequent.(Ch. 4)

Combination rule

The way scores on multiple criteria are combined into a single decision, including the “and” rule, the “or” rule and the averaging rule.(Ch. 6)

Compensatory strategies

Methods a student uses to work around a difficulty, such as memorization or reliance on context; they may also mask it.(Ch. 13)

Computerized adaptive test

A test in which the computer selects each item on the basis of the student's previous responses and stops once the ability estimate reaches a specified level of precision.(Ch. 3)

Conduct disorder

A repetitive and persistent pattern of behavior that violates the rights of others or major age-appropriate social norms.(Ch. 10)

Conductive hearing loss

Hearing loss originating in the outer or middle ear, appearing as a gap between air and bone conduction; it may be temporary or fluctuating.(Ch. 11)

Confidence interval

A range of scores within which the true score is expected to fall with a specified probability.(Ch. 2)

Confirmation bias

The evaluator's tendency to notice evidence that supports a prior hypothesis and to overlook evidence that contradicts it.(Ch. 1 Ch. 14)

Consensual Assessment Technique

Assessing the creativity of a product through independent ratings by judges familiar with the domain, then examining their agreement.(Ch. 12)

Continuous performance test

A computerized task that measures sustained attention and impulsivity through responses to a series of rapidly presented stimuli.(Ch. 10)

Contrast sensitivity

The ability to distinguish an object from its background when their colors are close.(Ch. 11)

Creative-productive giftedness

The ability to produce original ideas and products for a real audience; Renzulli contrasts it with schoolhouse giftedness, that is, skill at learning lessons and taking tests.(Ch. 12)

Criterion-referenced test

A test on which a student's score is interpreted against a predetermined standard of performance or mastery.(Ch. 2)

Culture-Language Interpretive Matrix (C-LIM)

A method for interpreting a score pattern according to the cultural loading and linguistic demands of the tests, by comparing it with the range expected for students with similar language exposure.(Ch. 14)

Curriculum-based measurement

Brief, repeated measures with standardized procedures, drawn from the curriculum, that monitor progress in basic skills.(Ch. 4)

Cut-off score

The dividing score set by an instrument or a system for making a decision.(Ch. 1 Ch. 2 Ch. 3 Ch. 9)

Decibel

The unit of sound intensity; the higher the value, the louder the sound.(Ch. 11)

Decision rule

A rule agreed in advance for changing the intervention or the goal, such as four consecutive data points below the aimline or a trend line slope lower than the aimline slope.(Ch. 15)

Decoding

Converting a written word into its spoken form by linking letters to their sounds.(Ch. 8)

Descriptive assessment

Recording what precedes and follows a behavior in its natural settings without altering conditions; it shows what accompanies the behavior, not what causes it.(Ch. 5)

Developmental coordination disorder

A neurodevelopmental disorder affecting the acquisition and execution of coordinated motor skills; it may appear as poor handwriting and slow writing.(Ch. 8)

Developmental language disorder

A persistent, impactful language difficulty not associated with a known condition such as hearing loss, autism or intellectual disability; no discrepancy with nonverbal intelligence is required.(Ch. 11)

Developmental learning disorder

The ICD-11 counterpart of specific learning disorder.(Ch. 8)

Diagnosis

The judgment, based on a comprehensive evaluation, that a student meets the criteria for a particular category.(Ch. 1)

Diagnostic overshadowing

Attributing new symptoms to a known disability, so that another condition is overlooked.(Ch. 1 Ch. 7 Ch. 14)

Dialectal difference

Pronunciation that reflects the dialect of the child and the child's community; it is not a disorder, even when it departs from Modern Standard Arabic.(Ch. 11)

Differential diagnosis

Verifying that the symptoms are not better explained by another condition.(Ch. 9)

Differential item functioning, DIF

A difference between two groups of equal ability in the probability of answering an item correctly.(Ch. 2 Ch. 14)

Diglossia

The coexistence of two varieties of a language within one community, such as Standard Arabic and the colloquial dialect, each with its own uses.(Ch. 8)

Discontinue rule

The number of consecutive errors after which the examiner stops administering a subtest.(Ch. 3)

Discrepancy model

Identifying a learning disability by a large gap between ability and achievement scores.(Ch. 6)

Disorder of intellectual development, provisional

An ICD-11 category for a child younger than four, or for an individual who cannot be validly assessed.(Ch. 7)

Disproportionality

A marked difference between a group's share of a category or program and its expected share.(Ch. 14)

Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder

Severe, recurrent temper outbursts with persistently irritable mood between outbursts, beginning before age 10.(Ch. 10)

Divergent thinking

The ability to generate many varied and original ideas in response to a single problem.(Ch. 12)

DT→PI

A model used in talent search programs that pinpoints what a student does not yet know of an advanced course, teaches only that material, and then tests the student at the end of the course.(Ch. 12)

Dual differentiation

Instruction that provides challenge in areas of strength and support in areas of difficulty at the same time.(Ch. 13)

Dual discrepancy

A student's falling below peers in both level of performance and rate of growth.(Ch. 6 Ch. 8)

Dynamic assessment

Assessment in which the examiner intervenes and deliberately teaches, then measures the effect of that teaching and how the student responds to it.(Ch. 5)

Dyscalculia

A pattern of learning difficulty marked by weaknesses in number sense, number facts, and calculation accuracy and fluency.(Ch. 8)

Dysgraphia

A term used for difficulty with handwriting or with spelling and written expression; its DSM counterpart is specific learning disorder with impairment in written expression.(Ch. 13)

Dyslexia

A pattern of learning difficulty marked by weaknesses in the accuracy and fluency of word recognition and in spelling, usually rooted in a phonological weakness.(Ch. 8)

Early intervention

Services for young children who are developmentally delayed or at risk of delay, and for their families; each country's system sets the age range and eligibility criteria.(Ch. 5)

Echolalia

Repeating words or phrases the child has heard from others, immediately or after a delay, often with the same intonation.(Ch. 9)

Eligibility

The determination that a student qualifies for special services, based on the diagnosis and its impact on the student's learning.(Ch. 1)

Eligibility determination

The decision that a student qualifies for services; it usually requires both the presence of a category and a need for specially designed instruction.(Ch. 15)

Emotional disturbance

An educational category in U.S. law for students whose emotional or behavioral characteristics impair their learning markedly and over a long period.(Ch. 10)

Enrichment

Broadening and deepening the curriculum for a gifted student without changing the student's grade placement or pace of progress.(Ch. 15)

Equity formula

A rule that sets the minimum acceptable representation of a group in a gifted program at its share of the student population multiplied by 0.8.(Ch. 14)

Error analysis

Examining patterns in a student's errors to uncover the faulty rules the student is applying.(Ch. 4)

Excellence gaps

Differences among groups in the proportions of students who reach advanced levels of performance.(Ch. 12 Ch. 14)

Executive functions

Abilities that regulate behavior toward a goal, such as planning, working memory and self-control.(Ch. 10)

Exome sequencing

A genetic test that reads the protein-coding portions of nearly all genes in search of a causal variant.(Ch. 7)

Expanded core curriculum

Skills a student with visual impairment needs to be taught explicitly, in nine areas that include braille, orientation and mobility, and independent living.(Ch. 11)

Externalizing problems

Problems directed outward toward others, such as aggression, defiance and rule-breaking.(Ch. 10)

Floor and ceiling

A test's capacity to discriminate among very low and very high levels of performance.(Ch. 2)

Flynn effect

Generational change in mean performance on intelligence tests—an upward drift through most of the twentieth century—which, where present, causes outdated norms to inflate scores.(Ch. 2)

Functional analysis

Systematically manipulating conditions to test a hypothesis about the function of a behavior experimentally.(Ch. 5)

Functional behavioral assessment

A process for identifying the function of a problem behavior and the conditions that trigger and maintain it.(Ch. 5 Ch. 10)

Functional language

A child's ability to use language for everyday needs and communication; it is one of the two classification specifiers in ICD-11.(Ch. 9)

Functional vision assessment

An assessment of how a student actually uses vision in learning situations and daily life.(Ch. 11)

General Ability Index

A Wechsler composite score that measures reasoning and comprehension without working memory and processing speed.(Ch. 8 Ch. 12)

Gift

High natural ability not yet refined through learning and practice.(Ch. 12)

Gifted underachiever

A student of very high ability whose achievement falls clearly below it.(Ch. 12)

Global developmental delay

A provisional diagnosis for a child under five who is delayed in two or more developmental domains.(Ch. 7)

Graduated prompts

Aids the examiner offers, from the most general to the most specific, recording how many the student needed to reach the solution.(Ch. 5)

Halo effect

The tendency for a single salient trait, positive or negative, to color judgments of many other qualities.(Ch. 14)

Horn effect

The negative counterpart of the halo effect: a salient negative trait lowers judgments of unrelated qualities.(Ch. 14)

Hybrid model

A model for identifying learning disabilities that combines inadequate response to intervention, low achievement and the exclusion of other explanations.(Ch. 6)

Identification

In this book: the stage of gathering initial evidence and trying classroom supports in preparation for a referral decision. Much of the literature uses the term for the entire process through to the final decision; in gifted education it denotes a multiple-criteria educational process for determining who needs gifted services, not a clinical diagnosis.(Ch. 1)

Identification; detection

A term that overlaps in the Arabic literature with “identification” and is commonly used for the process of searching for and identifying gifted students or students with disabilities, as in the “National Program for Gifted Identification” and the “early detection of disability.”(Ch. 1)

In partial remission

A specifier used when full criteria were previously met but have not been fully met over the past six months, while impairment in functioning persists.(Ch. 10)

Independent educational evaluation

An evaluation conducted by a party outside the school. Under U.S. law, a family that disagrees with the school's evaluation may request one at public expense.(Ch. 15)

Individualized Education Program (IEP)

A document that sets out the student's present levels, goals, services and accommodations, and how progress will be measured.(Ch. 15)

Informant

The person who provides information about the student on a rating scale or in an interview, such as a parent, a teacher or the student.(Ch. 3)

Informant discrepancy

Differences among parents', teachers' and students' ratings of the same problems; it is read as information about context, not as measurement error.(Ch. 10)

Informed consent

The family's consent given after learning what will be done, why, and who will have access to the results.(Ch. 1)

Intellectual disability

Significant limitations in both intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior, with onset during the developmental period.(Ch. 7)

Interdisciplinary team

A team whose members each assess the student in their own field, then share their findings and reach a joint decision and plan together.(Ch. 1)

Internalizing problems

Problems directed inward toward the self, such as anxiety, sadness, withdrawal and somatic complaints.(Ch. 10 Ch. 14)

Interobserver agreement

The proportion of agreement between independent observers recording the same behavior.(Ch. 4)

Interval recording

Dividing the observation period into short intervals and recording whether the behavior occurs in each.(Ch. 4)

Interview-informed synthesized contingency analysis

A streamlined form of functional analysis that combines the conditions identified in an open-ended interview into a single test condition, compared against a control condition.(Ch. 5)

Intra-individual comparison

Comparing a student's performance in one area with the student's abilities in other areas.(Ch. 13)

Item Response Theory, IRT

A measurement framework that describes each item with a curve linking ability to the probability of a correct response; measurement precision varies with ability level.(Ch. 2)

Joint attention

When a child directs another person's attention to something, or follows that person's attention to it, so that both share an interest in it—for example, pointing at an airplane and looking at their mother.(Ch. 9)

Language deprivation

A child's reaching an advanced age without a fully acquired language, spoken or signed, because the child never had full access to one.(Ch. 11)

Learning disabilities

The educational term for the category of students who qualify for special education services because of a specific learning difficulty, as defined by the education system.(Ch. 8)

Learning efficiency (Gl)

A broad ability in CHC theory concerning the speed of storing and consolidating new information.(Ch. 3)

Learning media assessment

An assessment that determines the most suitable medium through which a student with low vision or blindness learns to read and write.(Ch. 11)

Limited prosocial emotions

A specifier for conduct disorder describing lack of remorse or guilt, callousness and lack of empathy, unconcern about performance, and shallow or deficient affect.(Ch. 10)

Local norms

Norms that compare a student with peers in the same school or district rather than with a national sample.(Ch. 6 Ch. 12)

Masking

The giftedness compensates for the disability and the disability depresses the giftedness, so that overall performance appears average.(Ch. 13)

Measurable goal

A goal that specifies the behavior, the conditions, the criterion and the time frame, so that its attainment can be judged.(Ch. 15)

Measurement invariance

Evidence that a measure assesses the same construct in the same way in two groups, so their scores can be validly compared.(Ch. 2 Ch. 14)

Mediated learning experience

Learning in which an adult mediates between the child and the task, directing the child's attention, organizing information and helping the child transfer what has been learned.(Ch. 5)

Meta-analysis

A statistical method that pools the results of multiple studies on a single topic and analyzes them together to reach a more general conclusion.(Ch. 6)

Miscue analysis

Analysis of oral reading errors in terms of whether they preserve meaning, fit the sentence structure and resemble the printed word. It rests on a model that contemporary reading science has abandoned.(Ch. 4)

Mode equivalence

Evidence that a test's digital format yields scores with the same meaning as its paper format, so the paper norms remain valid for it.(Ch. 3)

Modifiability

The extent to which a student benefits from mediated instruction and is able to transfer what has been learned.(Ch. 5)

Modification

A change that alters what a test measures or its difficulty, so comparison with the norms is no longer valid.(Ch. 3 Ch. 15)

Momentary time sampling

Recording whether the behavior occurs only at the moment each interval ends.(Ch. 4)

Multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS)

A comprehensive schoolwide framework for delivering academic and behavioral support at increasing levels of intensity.(Ch. 6)

Multidisciplinary team

A group of specialists from different fields who share in assessing the student, each usually working independently.(Ch. 1)

Narrowband scale

A rating scale that focuses on a single disorder or domain and measures it in depth.(Ch. 3)

Negative predictive value

The proportion of those with a negative result who truly do not have the problem; it is affected by the prevalence of the problem in the group.(Ch. 1 Ch. 2)

Nomination

A teacher, parent or student's proposal of a student's name for evaluation in a gifted identification program.(Ch. 1)

Nonresponse criterion

The rule the team sets in advance for judging that a student has not responded to intervention, such as final status, slope or dual discrepancy, with a specified threshold.(Ch. 6)

Norm sample

The group to which an instrument was administered to derive its norms, and against which each student's score is later compared.(Ch. 2)

Norm-referenced test

A test on which a student's score is interpreted against the scores of same-age or same-grade peers in the norming sample.(Ch. 2)

Normative comparison

Comparing a student's performance with that of same-age peers.(Ch. 13)

Number sense

An intuitive grasp of quantities and their relations, such as comparing and estimating them and placing numbers on a number line.(Ch. 8)

Operational definition

Describing a behavior in terms of what can be seen and heard, so that two observers would agree on whether it occurred.(Ch. 4)

Opportunity to display

The situations a learning environment offers in which a student can show their abilities.(Ch. 12)

Oppositional defiant disorder

A persistent pattern of angry or irritable mood, argumentative and defiant behavior, and vindictiveness.(Ch. 10)

Patterns of strengths and weaknesses (PSW)

A model that looks for a specific cognitive weakness that explains an academic weakness alongside generally sound abilities; it has three well-known variants.(Ch. 6)

Percentile rank

The percentage of the student's peers in the norming sample (of the same age or grade) who scored below the student; a percentile rank of 84 means the student scored higher than 84% of them. It is not the percentage of correct answers.(Ch. 2)

Phonological awareness

The ability to perceive the sounds in words and to manipulate them through deletion, blending and segmentation.(Ch. 8)

Phonological processing

The brain's handling of the sounds of language, including phonological awareness, phonological memory and rapid naming.(Ch. 8)

Play-based assessment

Observing a young child at play to assess the various domains of development.(Ch. 5)

Portfolio

A selected collection of the student's work gathered over time according to a purpose and criteria.(Ch. 4)

Positive predictive value

The probability that the condition is truly present in someone with a positive result; it is affected by how prevalent the condition is in the group tested.(Ch. 2 Ch. 9)

Pre-symbolic communication

A stage in which the child communicates through body movements, facial expressions and actions, before words, signs and pictures.(Ch. 11)

Present levels of performance

A description of what the student can do now, with strengths and areas of need; it is the starting point for goals.(Ch. 15)

Presentation

The current pattern of symptoms: predominantly inattentive, predominantly hyperactive/impulsive, or combined.(Ch. 10)

Pseudowords

Made-up words that follow the sound rules of the language, used to measure decoding in isolation.(Ch. 8)

Rapid automatized naming

The speed of naming a series of familiar symbols; it is linked to reading fluency.(Ch. 8)

Rating scale

An instrument on which someone who knows the child rates the extent to which specific behaviors occur, using a graded scale.(Ch. 9)

Raw score

The number of correct responses or total points before conversion; it has no meaning on its own.(Ch. 2)

Reevaluation

A periodic or as-needed evaluation that asks whether the category still applies, whether services are still needed, and what the student's current profile looks like.(Ch. 15)

Referral

A formal request for a comprehensive evaluation of a student, accompanied by supporting evidence and the family's consent.(Ch. 1)

Regression toward the mean

The tendency of extreme scores to move closer to the mean when measurement is repeated.(Ch. 2)

Regression-based discrepancy

Comparing actual achievement with the achievement predicted from the ability score by a regression equation, rather than with the ability score itself.(Ch. 6)

Relative age effect

The higher likelihood that the youngest students in a class will be diagnosed, because they are compared with older classmates.(Ch. 10)

Reliability/precision

The consistency of a measure's results across time, items or raters, and the precision of the score in general.(Ch. 2)

Representation index

A group's share of a program's students divided by its share of the student population; a value of 1 indicates proportional representation.(Ch. 14)

Response to intervention (RTI)

A model that provides tiered support and monitors the student's progress, treating inadequate response as evidence of the need for a comprehensive evaluation.(Ch. 6)

Retrieval fluency (Gr)

A broad ability in CHC theory concerning the speed of retrieving stored information.(Ch. 3)

Review, Interview, Observe, Test / Instruction, Curriculum, Environment, Learner

A matrix for gathering evidence through four methods (review, interview, observation and testing) across four domains (instruction, curriculum, environment and learner).(Ch. 1)

Risk index

The proportion of a group's members who have been diagnosed.(Ch. 14)

Risk ratio

A group's risk index divided by the risk index of a comparison group.(Ch. 14)

Routing subtest

A brief subtest that determines the starting level for the remaining subtests of a battery.(Ch. 7)

Rubric

A tool that sets out the criteria for evaluating a completed piece of work and describes, in words, the levels of performance on each criterion. It should not be confused with a Rating scale, which estimates the frequency or intensity of behavior.(Ch. 4 Ch. 5)

Sandwich and cake formats

Two formats of dynamic assessment: the first places instruction between a pretest and a posttest; the second delivers prompts within each item.(Ch. 5)

Saudi Sign Language

A complete natural language used by deaf people in the Kingdom, with its own vocabulary and grammar.(Ch. 11)

Scaled score

A standard score with a mean of 10 and a standard deviation of 3, used on subtests to compare a student's performance with the norming sample.(Ch. 9)

Screening

A quick procedure applied to an entire group to identify who needs more in-depth evaluation.(Ch. 1 Ch. 9)

Sensitivity

A tool's ability to detect those who actually have the problem, a property strongly required of screening tools.(Ch. 1 Ch. 2 Ch. 9)

Sensorineural hearing loss

Hearing loss originating in the inner ear or the auditory nerve; it is usually permanent.(Ch. 11)

Simple view of reading

A model that defines reading comprehension as the product of decoding and language comprehension; Chapter 8 also refers to it as the simple model of reading.(Ch. 8)

Social maladjustment

A term left undefined in U.S. regulations; students who are socially maladjusted are excluded from the emotional disturbance category unless they are also shown to have an emotional disturbance.(Ch. 10)

Specific learning disorder

The DSM term for persistent difficulty learning basic academic skills that is not better explained by other factors.(Ch. 8)

Specificity

An instrument's ability to rule out those who do not have the problem.(Ch. 1 Ch. 2 Ch. 9)

Speech sound disorder

Persistent difficulty producing speech sounds that is inappropriate for the child's age and interferes with the intelligibility of the child's speech.(Ch. 11)

Standard deviation

A measure of how widely scores are spread around their mean.(Ch. 2)

Standard error of estimate

The spread of actual scores around the scores predicted by a regression equation; it is used to judge how far achievement falls from what is expected.(Ch. 6)

Standard Error of Measurement, SEM

An estimate of how much an individual's score fluctuates around the true score because reliability is imperfect.(Ch. 2)

Standard error of the difference

The expected amount of error in the difference between two scores, from which the smallest statistically significant difference is calculated.(Ch. 2)

Standard score

A transformed score with a fixed mean and standard deviation, most commonly a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15.(Ch. 2)

Standardized administration

Administering an instrument with the same directions, materials, timing and scoring procedures used with the norming sample.(Ch. 3)

Stopping

Replacing a fricative sound, such as /s/, with a stop sound, such as /t/.(Ch. 11)

Support needs intensity

The amount and type of support a person needs to participate in life activities.(Ch. 7)

T-score

A standard score with a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 10, used in most rating scales.(Ch. 3)

Tactile communication

Communication that relies on touch, such as signs the child feels with a hand placed over the signer's hand.(Ch. 11)

Talent

A well-developed skill in a specific domain, grown out of a gift through learning and practice.(Ch. 12)

Talent pool

A broad group of students, roughly 15–20%, who receive enrichment services in Renzulli's model, with flexible entry for anyone who displays gifted behaviors.(Ch. 12)

Teleassessment

Administering an assessment instrument by video connection, with the examiner in one location and the student in another.(Ch. 3)

Test adaptation

Modifying a measure's items and examples to fit a new culture and studying the result empirically; it is broader than translation and narrower than local norming. It differs from “accommodation” in the sense of supports provided to a student during testing.(Ch. 2)

Three-Ring Conception

Renzulli's conception of gifted behavior as the intersection of above-average ability, task commitment and creativity.(Ch. 12)

Transdisciplinary team

A team that assesses the child together in a single session, with one member working directly with the child under the guidance of the others.(Ch. 1)

Treatment fidelity

The extent to which an intervention is delivered as designed: the number and length of sessions and adherence to its steps.(Ch. 6)

Trend line

The line of best fit through a student's data points on a progress graph; its slope is compared with that of the aimline.(Ch. 15)

Twice-exceptional

Students who combine giftedness with a disability or learning difficulty, either of which may mask the other.(Ch. 8 Ch. 9 Ch. 12 Ch. 13)

Tympanometry

A measure of eardrum movement; a flat tracing usually indicates fluid behind the eardrum.(Ch. 11)

Universal behavior screening

Periodically rating every student in a class with a brief tool to detect those who need support or evaluation, including students who have not been referred.(Ch. 10)

Universal screening

Assessing all students in a grade or school level, rather than relying on nomination or family registration.(Ch. 6 Ch. 12 Ch. 14)

Validity

The degree to which evidence supports the interpretation of test scores for a particular purpose; validity evidence is drawn from five sources.(Ch. 2)

Visual acuity

Clarity of vision, expressed as a fraction such as 6/6 and measured at distance and near.(Ch. 11)

Visual field

The area a person can see without moving their eyes.(Ch. 11)

Voice disorders

Departures in vocal quality, pitch, loudness or resonance from what is appropriate to the speaker's age and sex.(Ch. 11)

Zone of proximal development

The distance between what a child can do alone and what the child can do with help from someone more experienced.(Ch. 5)

B.2English–Arabic index