Learning pathway
Special education — milder needs
Pathways are suggestions, not requirements. They order existing content by what tends to matter most for a role — you can switch pathways or browse everything any time.
Primarily students with learning disabilities, ADHD, mild autism, or emotional/behavioral disabilities (EBD).
EBD and ADHD put self-regulation at the front edge, so this leads with behavior — but the core support is academic. The legal section is here for one reason: implementing accommodations without drift.
Lead competencies for this role
Behavior & Social-Emotional SupportInstructional SupportInclusion & IEP Implementation
Guides for this role
Behavior Support
- Function-Based ThinkingYou're trying to figure out why a student behaves the way they do, and why the answer matters more than the behavior itself.
- Functional Behavior AssessmentAn FBA is happening for your student, and you're going to be a major source of the data the team needs.
- Reading and Running a BIPYou're being asked to run a Behavior Intervention Plan, and you need to read it the way it's meant to be read.
- Antecedent StrategiesYou want to spend less time managing crises: by changing what happens *before* the behavior, not what happens after.
- Reinforcement Based InterventionsYou're being asked to run DRO, DRA, DRI, or NCR, and you need to know what those mean and where most paras get it wrong.
- Functional Communication TrainingYou're teaching a student a replacement for behavior that's already doing real work for them, and you need to do it the way the plan was designed.
- See all in Behavior Support →
Instructional Practice
- Instructional Roles of the ParaYou do instructional work all day, and you need a clear line between supporting and teaching, with the skill ceiling that comes with each.
- Prompting HierarchiesPrompting is most of what you do, and the difference between skilled and well-intentioned prompting determines whether the student becomes independent.
- Prompt FadingYou prompt students through skills they can't yet do alone, and fading those prompts is where actual independence gets built.
- Programming Sheets and Procedural FidelityYou run programs that another adult also runs, and consistency between you is the difference between the program working and not.
- Reinforcement BasicsYou use reinforcement every day, and the difference between great reinforcement and "bribery" is whether you know what you're doing.
- Errorless Learning and Error CorrectionYou teach skills where the student's errors matter, and where uncorrected wrong responses get rehearsed into harder-to-undo patterns.
- See all in Instructional Practice →
Disability-Specific Briefs
- AutismYou support an autistic student, and you need a frame that holds the heterogeneity ("if you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person") without flattening it.
- ADHDYou support a student with ADHD, and most of what's hard for them at school is executive function, not motivation.
- Specific Learning DisabilitiesYou support a student with a specific learning disability (SLD), the umbrella covers dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and language-based learning disabilities, each needing different support.
- DyslexiaYou support a student with dyslexia, and the right kind of reading instruction (Structured Literacy) makes the difference.
- Intellectual DisabilityYou support a student with intellectual disability, and the field has historically underestimated what these students can do.
- Speech Language ImpairmentYou support a student with a speech-language impairment, and you can be the SLP's carryover partner if you know the difference between the subtypes.
- See all in Disability-Specific Briefs →
Legal & Policy
- IDEA Overview for ParasYou work under IDEA every day, and you need a clear sense of the law's promises, your role within them, and where families' rights touch your work.
- ESSA and Title I Para QualificationsYou work in a Title I school, and federal law specifies what qualifications you must hold and what you can / cannot be assigned to do.
- Section 504 OverviewYou support a student with a 504 plan, and 504 is *not* a smaller IEP; it's a different law with different protections.
- ADA in SchoolsYou support students who need physical, communication, or program access, and the ADA reaches further than IDEA or 504 in some ways.
- Reading an IEPYou support a student with an IEP, and you should be able to read the IEP, find what affects your work, and use it as the contract it is.
- Specially Designed InstructionYou're being asked to design lessons, choose strategies, or adapt content, and the designing part is the teacher's, not yours.
- See all in Legal & Policy →
Data & Documentation
- Data Types OverviewYou take data on student goals, and you want to know which type (frequency, duration, latency, intensity, prompt level, permanent product, ABC notes on what happened before and after) answers the question you actually have.
- Interval RecordingYou're tracking behavior that's hard to count (engagement, vocal stim, on-task), and you want to know whether whole-interval, partial-interval, or momentary time sampling fits your question.
- Prompt Level DataYou're teaching a skill, and you want to track honestly how much help the student actually needed, so the team can fade prompts and build real independence.
- ABC Narrative RecordingA behavior is puzzling and the team doesn't yet understand it, and you're capturing antecedent-behavior-consequence notes that the board certified behavior analyst (BCBA) or teacher can analyze for function.
- IEP Progress MonitoringYou're collecting data that feeds quarterly IEP progress reports, and you want to be sure the reports tell the family and team something real about whether the student is growing.
- Digital Data ToolsYour district uses Catalyst, BehaviorSnap, Rethink, or another digital data platform, and you want to make it useful instead of just filling in fields.
- See all in Data & Documentation →
When the moment is happening
Open these cards during the situation — not to study.
All right-now cards →