Academy Modules: Modules developed for students in the three content areas are referred to as Academy modules. The instructor's modules are created for orientation purposes and are not intended for professional development. Rather, they are designed to convey information about Academy modules and how they can be integrated into teacher education programs.

Antecedent: A stimulus (i.e. a verbal cue, activity, event or person) that immediately precedes a behavior. This stimulus may or may not serve as discriminative for a specific behavior.

Applied Behavioral Analysis: The science of studying the observable patterns of behavior and the environmental interactions. The techniques allow the observer to have clear knowledge of how specific interventions or techniques may be affecting certain behaviors.

Classroom Management: Procedures and instructional techniques that are used to establish the classroom environments so that learning can occur. Management strategies are based on understanding how the classroom environment can be used to best accommodate student needs.

Communication Skills: The set of skills that enables a person to convey information so that it is received and understood. Communication skills refer to the repertoire of behaviors that serve to convey information for the student.

Consequence: A stimulus (i.e. a verbal response, the acquisition of a reinforcing item or activity) that contingently follows a behavior. For instance, if a little girlīs crying results in attention from her teachers, then teacher attention would be considered a consequence that followed the crying behavior.

Consequence Interventions: Strategies that address the stimuli (i.e. a verbal response, the acquisition of a reinforcing item or an activity) that contingently follow a behavior. Two strategies can be used when problem behavior occurs more frequently than appropriate behavior: increase reinforcement for appropriate behavior, and decrease reinforcement received for engaging in problem behavior.

Content Areas: OSEP has specified three content areas within the teacher education curriculum for the Academy to focus on. The content areas include reading, positive behavioral supports and technology in education. These are the content areas from which research-based interventions will be selected and transformed into instructional modules.

Directed Questions: A series of questions about lesson content has been included as a feature in each module. A question is presented. Once students enter their response they are able to access exemplary answers. This allows them to compare their response to responses prepared by the Academy staff.

Extinction: Reinforcement is withheld from a previously reinforced behavior and therefore the behavior decreases. The goal of withholding reinforcement is to decrease the target behavior.

Fading: The systematic, gradual removal of prompts that promotes an independent, uncued response from a learner.

Function: The consequences that are related to maintaining the occurrence of a behavior. Documented functions of problem behavior include (a) attention, (b) desire for activities or items, (c) escape from attention or activities, and (d) escape from or obtain physiological stimulation.

Functional Assessment: Also known as Functional Behavioral Assessment. The process of collecting information in order to develop hypothesis statements regarding the variables that maintain and predict problem behavior. Functional assessment strategies include indirect assessment methods, direct observation, and functional analysis.

Generalization: The use of a newly learned skill in a setting that is different than the setting in which the skill was initially learned.

Gustatory Stimulation: Any stimulation related to the act of tasting or the sense of taste.

Hypothesis Statement: An end product or summary of the functional assessment. A hypothesis statement provides information about environmental events that may increase the likelihood of problem behavior, the environmental events that precede problem behavior, and the probable function of the problem behavior.

IDEA: Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and the parallel statutes of many states guarantees the right to a free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment for students with disabilities. The law applies to all students between the ages of 3 and 21 who qualify for special education and related services. Local school districts are held responsible for identification and initial evaluation of each student, and interdisciplinary teams work with the student and parents to generate an annual individualized education plan (IEP).

Inclusion: A school reform movement that involves interdisciplinary teams collaborating in order to support students with disabilities within regular education settings. Inclusionary classrooms promote an atmosphere that allows students with various interests and abilities to learn in a shared environment.

Interdisciplinary Team: The team of people from different perspectives or disciplines that join together to problem solve and develop educational and behavior plans. Team members may include the student, parents or other family members, teachers, therapists, community members, job coaches, vocational rehabilitation counselors, and paraprofessionals.

Intrinsic Motivation: Internal thoughts or feelings that feed oneīs desire to achieve, perform, or become involved in activities or events.

Lesson Plans: Organized materials that guide the events and instruction taking place in a classroom setting. Lesson plans are usually structured around a set of guidelines that are constructed by individual teachers to meet the needs of students.

Menu: There are menus for each level and lesson in an Academy module. Links to the level menus appear in the center of the menubar. Access any level menu by clicking the level titles in the center of the menubar. Click the up arrow (top right) to access the menu for the current level or to go to the next higher menu level. For example, if you are viewing a page in a lesson the up arrow takes you to the current Lesson menu then to the menu for all Lessons then to the Table of Contents (ToC) for the entire module.

Multicomponent Intervention Plan: A comprehensive behavioral support plan that contains multiple strategies to address problem behaviors in settings where problem behaviors occur.

Navigation: Navigation refers to the technical process of moving from one feature to another in an online module. The navigation system for Academy modules allows students to follow a critical path, but also to exercise flexibility when they wish to vary from the normal path of progressing through a module.

Negative Reinforcement: Behavior increases when an aversive stimulus is removed.

Off-Task Behavior: When a student is not engaged in or working on a preselected task or activity.

PBS (Positive Behavioral Support): A comprehensive set of strategies that are meant to redesign environments in such a way that problem behaviors are prevented or inconsequential, and to teach students new skills, making problem behaviors unnecessary.

Physical Therapist: A person who is trained to provide education and treatment of physical impairments using strategies such as stretching, exercise, and massage.

Positive Reinforcement: Behavior increases when a stimulus is delivered.

Preventative Strategies: Behavioral support plans that are implemented before problem behavior has a chance to occur. Preventative strategies involve redesigning the environment and teaching new skills.

Principles of Human Behavior: Principles of behavior describe the relation between behavior and the variables that control it. The basic principles of behavior are the foundation from which positive behavioral support plans are built. Examples of behavioral principles include reinforcement, punishment, extinction, and stimulus control.

Proactive Interventions: The use of knowledge and experience to implement strategies before problem behavior or undesirable situations have a chance to occur.

Punishment: A consequent stimulus that reduces the probability a behavior will occur.

Quality of Life: A variety of elements in a student's life including predictability, environmental stability, level of social belonging, empowerment and control, well being and satisfaction.

Reactive Interventions: Behavioral support strategies that are implemented after a behavior occurs.

Reinforcement: The state of receiving or presenting a reinforcer. A stimulus that when presented immediately following a response increases the probability that the response will occur again. Can be the presentation of a reward or removal of something unpleasant.

School-Wide Discipline Plans: A unified approach for implementing behavioral support strategies by all staff members within a school. The purpose of a school-wide discipline plan is to increase the consistency and effectiveness of behavioral support strategies and to decrease time spent dealing with minor problem behaviors.

Setting Event: Any occurrence that affects a student's responses to reinforcers and punishers in the environment. Setting events can be due to environmental, social, or physiological factors. Occurrences that affect a behavior at one point in time may change the likelihood of a targeted behavior at a later point.

Setting Event Interventions: Interventions that address setting events involve developing approaches that identify social, environmental, and physiological events that may temporarily alter the value of reinforcers and punishers within the student's environment. Setting event interventions may involve minimizing the likelihood of the setting event, changing expectations on days when setting events occur, or neutralizing the setting event.

Shaping: Reinforcing successive approximations towards a desired response. Shaping is used to teach a new behavior by manipulating the consequences presented.

Social Network: A web of interconnected people who directly or indirectly interact with or influence the student and family. May include but is not limited to family, teachers and other school staff, friends, neighbors, community contacts, and professional support.

Stimulus: Anything that elicits or evokes action in a person or creates a response in a muscle, nerve, gland or other excitable tissue or organ of the body.

Table of Contents: Each module includes a general Table of Contents (ToC) covering the entire module. Click "ToC" in the top right of the menubar to access the Table of Contents