The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires public schools to provide special education and related services to eligible students. To be covered, a child’s school performance must be adversely affected by a disability in one of the following categories:
Arizona Department of Education AT Short Term Loan Library
Arizona Department of Education, Exceptional Student Services works in partnership with Northern Arizona University Institute for Human Development Arizona Technology Access Program to make available at no cost, a wide variety of assistive technology devices, equipment, software and professional development materials to school personnel to improve access to assistive technology.
Publisher: Arizona Department of Education
Cognitive and Metacognitive Strategies
Executive functioning skills are critical for learners of all grades and abilities and are relevant across all academic and behavior domains. This practice brief includes several cognitive and metacognitive strategies to address executive function difficulties for students with disabilities, regardless of grade, content area, or disability.
Publication Date: August 2021
Publisher: PROGRESS Center at the American Institutes for Research
Dyscalculia
This fact sheet explains dyscalculia isn’t a problem of intelligence or lack of effort. Dyscalculia makes math hard, is common, and is often overlooked. The fact sheet lists trouble areas and ways to help.
Publication Date: 2025
Publisher: Understood
Encircle Families
Collaboration between families and professionals results in the best possible outcomes for children with disabilities. Encircle Families is an Arizona nonprofit organization that provides free training and information to parents to help them understand their rights, roles, and responsibilities in their child’s health care and education. Training for pre-service and in-service professionals in education is available to improve collaboration between families and providers and achieve better results for children.
Publication Date: 2025
Publisher: Encircle Families
Evaluation Process
This AZ-TAS document provides a step-by-step guide to the procedures for use throughout the
evaluation process, including reviewing existing data, determining the need for additional
data, obtaining parent consent, conducting any needed assessments, and determining
eligibility.
Publication Date: Updated August 2024
Publisher: Arizona Department of Education
Exceptional Student Services
Exceptional Student Services (ESS) ensures that public education agencies (PEAs) in Arizona have special education programs, policies, and procedures that comply with the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and its implementing regulations and that eligible children and youth with disabilities receive a free, appropriate public education (FAPE). ESS provides professional learning opportunities and technical assistance to schools, supports the needs of families and students with disabilities, monitors schools for compliance with the regulations that implement the IDEA, and administers the IDEA Entitlement grant.
Publisher: Arizona Department of Education
Frequently Asked Questions: Section 504 Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE)
Section 504 regulations require a school district to provide a free appropriate public education (FAPE) to each qualified student with a disability who is in the school district's jurisdiction, regardless of the nature or severity of the disability. This resource document clarifies pertinent requirements of Section 504.
Publication Date: Reviewed June 2025
Publisher: U.S. Department of Education
High-Leverage Practices for Students with Disabilities
This revised and updated guide includes four domains of evidence-based practices: Collaboration, Data-Driven Planning, Instruction in Behavior and Academics, and Intensify and Intervene As Needed.
Each domain includes descriptions of Pillar Practices and embedded High-Leverage Practices, provides elementary and secondary examples of practice, research updates, and relevant resources for more information.
Publication Date: March 2024
Publishers: Council for Exceptional Children and CEEDAR Center
High-Leverage Practices Videos
These videos accompany High-Leverage Practices for Students with Disabilities and provide revised and updated information supporting the four domains with High-Leverage Practices within each domain and concrete examples to anchor and reinforce both knowledge development and application.
Publisher: CEEDAR Center
Instructional Accommodations
This webpage provides detailed information for accommodations in presentation, response, timing/scheduling setting, assessment, including students in the decision-making process, documentation on IEPs and 504 plans, and more.
Author: Sandra Thompson
Publisher: National Center on Educational Outcomes, University of Kansas
Intensive Intervention Practice Guides
Each practice guide identifies an approach to intensive intervention for a select population of students with disabilities. The guides for literacy, writing, mathematics, behavior, and autism spectrum disorders describe the existing evidence base behind it and discuss the next steps in research needed to improve our understanding of designing and delivering the intervention.
Publisher: National Center for Leadership in Intensive Intervention
Laws Impacting Special Education
This webpage provides information and resources for how Federal laws protect children with disabilities and ensure they receive a free appropriate public education, including 504 plans.
Publication Date: Reviewed May 2025
Publisher: U.S. Department of Education
Leveraging Data-Based Individualization to Design and Deliver Specially Designed Instruction
In this webinar, experts model how practitioners can use data-based individualization (DBI) to develop and implement Specially Designed Instruction for students with disabilities. A panel of special educators also share how using DBI improved the efficiency and effectiveness of their service delivery, communication with families, and collaboration with other educators.
Authors: Sara Evans and Kyle Allen
Publication Date: April 2023
Publishers: National Center on Intensive Intervention
Myths and Facts Surrounding Assistive Technology Devices and Services
This document is designed to increase understanding of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act’s (IDEA’s) assistive technology (AT) requirements, dispel common misconceptions regarding AT, and provide examples of the use of AT devices and services for children with disabilities and to highlight the different requirements under Part C and Part B of IDEA.
Publication Date: January 2024
Publisher: U.S. Department of Education
Students with Disabilities
In 2019–20, the number of students ages 3–21 who received special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was 7.3 million, or 14 percent of all public school students. Among students receiving special education services, the most common category of disability (33 percent) was specific learning disabilities.
Publication Date: May 2021
Publisher: Institute of Education Sciences
Supporting Content Learning Through Technology for K-12 Students with Disabilities
This Innovation Configuration focuses on the use of technology to support learning across K-12 content areas and settings for diverse learners, including students with disabilities. By aligning technology integration with the UDL framework, educators can create adaptable, accessible learning environments that cater to the varied needs of their students.
Authors: Maya Israel, Rui Huang, Richard Bexx II, Kathlyn Kale-Mokake, and Matthew Marino
Publication Date: February 2025
Publisher: Collaboration for Effective Educator, Development, Accountability, and Reform Center
The Basics of Accommodations and Modifications
The purpose of this Brief is to clarify what accommodations and modifications are for both instruction and assessment for students with disabilities. It also disentangles the use of the term “alternate or modified curriculum” from the meaning of modification used for instruction and assessment.
Authors: Andrew Hinkle, Sheryl Lazarus, Kascinda Fleming, Kristin Liu and Martha Thurlow
Publication Date: January 2024
Publisher: National Center on Educational Outcomes
The Civil Rights of Students With Hidden Disabilities and Section 504
This webpage explains disabilities covered under Section 504; hidden disabilities; responsibilities of ED recipients in preschool, elementary, secondary, and adult education; responsibilities of ED recipients in postsecondary education; and how the needs of students with hidden disabilities can be addressed.
Publication Date: Reviewed August 2025
Publisher: U.S. Department of Education
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act: A Comparison of State Eligibility Criteria
This report documents the variability in state definitions and eligibility criteria in the 14 IDEA disability categories. It presents results, discusses implications for special education service delivery, and considers the role of the federal government in special education eligibility determinations.
Publication Date: October 2020
Publisher: Congressional Research Service
The UDL Guidelines
This new iteration, UDL Guidelines 3.0, addresses critical barriers rooted in biases and systems of exclusion for learners with and without disabilities. These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.
Publication Date: July 2024
Publisher: CAST
What Are Academic Modifications?
This article discusses modifications and possible drawbacks. The discussion is enhanced with a video of Dr. Tom Hehir, Professor of Practices in Learning Differences, Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Author: Andrew Lee
Publisher: Understood
Who Are English Language Learners with Disabilities?
This article explores what is known about the prevalence of disabilities among ELLs and the characteristics of ELLs with disabilities. It concludes with recommendations for schools and organizations serving these students.
Authors: Elizabeth Watkins and Kristin Kline Liu
Publisher: University of Minnesota