ED5706 builds the assessment and data interpretation skills that drive every sound special education decision — from determining whether a student is eligible for services to writing measurable IEP goals, selecting appropriate interventions, and monitoring whether those interventions are working. Assessment in special education is not a single event but a continuous cycle of data collection, interpretation, and instructional response.
Assessment types in special education
| Assessment Type | Purpose | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Norm-referenced | Compare a student's performance to a normative sample; establish eligibility | Wechsler scales, Woodcock-Johnson, KTEA-3 |
| Criterion-referenced | Measure mastery of specific skills against defined criteria | Curriculum-based assessments, skill checklists |
| Curriculum-based measurement (CBM) | Brief, repeated measures of progress on curriculum-level skills | DIBELS, AIMSweb reading probes, math computation probes |
| Functional behavioral assessment (FBA) | Identify the function of challenging behavior to inform intervention | Behavioral observation, ABC data, interviews |
| Authentic/portfolio | Document student work and growth over time | Writing portfolios, project-based work samples |
What ED5706 covers
The eligibility evaluation process under IDEA requires a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary, non-discriminatory assessment to determine whether a student has a qualifying disability and needs special education. ED5706 examines what "comprehensive" and "non-discriminatory" mean in practice: using multiple measures (not a single test score), assessing across all areas of suspected disability, evaluating in the student's native language, ensuring assessment instruments are valid for the population being assessed, and considering the student's cultural and linguistic background when interpreting results. The course develops skill in reading and interpreting psychological and educational evaluation reports and using evaluation data to develop IEP present levels and goals.
IEP goal writing is both a technical and a consequential skill. Goals must be measurable (specifying observable behavior, conditions, and criteria for mastery), aligned to the student's present levels of performance and the gap between current performance and grade-level expectations, and ambitious enough to represent meaningful progress. ED5706 builds the skill of writing goals that are specific enough to guide instruction and assessment, and that communicate clearly to all IEP team members — including parents — what the student is working toward and how progress will be measured.
Writing an assessment analysis or IEP goal paper?
Our education writers apply assessment frameworks and IEP planning with the data-driven precision Capella's rubric requires.
Key topics you write about in ED5706
- Eligibility evaluation: IDEA requirements for comprehensive, non-discriminatory assessment
- Assessment types: norm-referenced, criterion-referenced, CBM, FBA, authentic assessment
- Reading and interpreting evaluation reports: psychoeducational and speech-language evaluation findings
- Present levels of academic achievement and functional performance: translating assessment data to IEP baseline
- IEP goal writing: measurable goals with observable behaviors, conditions, and criteria
- Progress monitoring: using CBM and other data to track IEP goal progress and adjust instruction
- Response to Intervention (RTI): tiered intervention and its role in special education identification
Common writing assignments
Evaluation report analysis
Students interpret a psychoeducational evaluation report, identifying the student's strengths and needs, summarizing findings across domains, and translating findings into IEP present levels and goal recommendations.
IEP goal development case study
Students use assessment data from a case study student to write multiple measurable IEP goals across academic and functional domains, with rationale for goal selection and progress monitoring plans.
Components of a measurable IEP goal
- Who: The student (by name in the actual IEP)
- Will do what: The observable, measurable behavior (read aloud, write, calculate)
- Under what conditions: The context (given a 3rd-grade passage, using a calculator)
- How well / by when: The criterion and timeline (at 90% accuracy by the annual review date)
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Frequently asked questions
Non-discriminatory assessment means evaluation procedures must not be culturally or racially biased. IDEA requires: assessment in the student's native language or mode of communication; use of validated instruments administered by trained personnel following publisher guidelines; no single measure as the sole determinant of eligibility; assessment of all areas of suspected disability; and interpretation of results that accounts for cultural and linguistic factors. This standard exists because historically, biased assessments disproportionately placed minority students, particularly African American students, in special education, and IDEA's non-discrimination requirements were partly designed to address this legacy.
Curriculum-based measurement (CBM) uses brief, standardized, repeated measures of student performance on curriculum-level tasks (reading fluency, math computation, writing fluency) to track progress toward IEP goals over time. CBM's value lies in its sensitivity to growth: because probes are brief and administered frequently (weekly or biweekly), they detect small changes in skill that would not appear on annual tests, allowing educators to identify quickly whether a student is responding to instruction or whether the instructional approach needs adjustment. Plotting CBM data on a graph and comparing the student's growth trajectory to their goal line is a core progress monitoring tool in special education.
Response to Intervention (RTI) is a multi-tiered framework in which all students receive high-quality Tier 1 instruction; students not responding receive more intensive Tier 2 small-group intervention; students still not responding receive even more intensive Tier 3 intervention. Progress monitoring data from each tier documents whether students are responding to increasingly intensive instruction. IDEA allows schools to use RTI data as part of the process for identifying Specific Learning Disability — the pattern of not responding to evidence-based instruction despite adequate opportunity can contribute to an SLD determination. RTI also ensures that students receive intervention promptly without waiting for a formal evaluation.
PLAAFP is the data foundation of the IEP. It describes the student's current levels of performance in academic and functional areas using objective assessment data, explains how the disability affects the student's involvement in general education, and establishes the baseline from which measurable annual goals are written. Well-written PLAAFP statements include specific data (reading fluency at X words per minute, math computation at X% accuracy), comparison to grade-level expectations (grade-level benchmark is Y), and a description of how the gap affects the student's access to grade-level curriculum. Annual goals should directly address the gaps described in the PLAAFP, making the connection between assessment data and instructional planning explicit.