Glossary of

KEY TERMS
The below list of terms and phrases are commonly used when discussing learning differences and the instruction of students with learning differences. Select a letter to browse.
Definitions are from the National Center for Learning Disabilities, Understood.org, and LD Online.
Accommodations
A shift or change in the ongoing method of instruction in order to facilitate student success.
Alphabetic Principle
Understanding the basic idea that language is a code in which letters represent the sounds in spoken words.
Aphasia
The inability to comprehend or produce spoken or written language.
Assessment
The process of gathering information to help an individual make decisions; in education, the information gathered should help a teacher make decisions about appropriate instructional goals, objectives, teaching methods, curriculum, and program placement.
Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)
A disorder characterized by severe and persistent difficulties in one or more of the following areas: attention, impulsivity, and motor behavior; these difficulties can lead to learning and behavior problems at home, school, and work.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
ADD with hyperactivity, or excessive and exaggerated motor activity.
Auditory Discrimination
Ability to detect differences in sounds; may be gross ability, such as detecting differences between noises by a cat and dog, or fine ability, such as detecting the differences made by the sounds of letters like “m” and “n”.
Auditory Figure Ground
Ability to attend to one sound against a background of sounds (e.g. hearing the teacher’s voice against classroom noise).
Auditory Memory
Ability to retain information that has been presented orally.
Auditory Processing
The ability to accurately process and interpret sound information, e.g. subtle differences between sounds in words.
Automaticity
The ability to perform any skilled and complex behavior rather easily with little attention, effort, or conscious awareness.
Basal reading series
Published comprehensive classroom reading programs that have daily plans for teaching reading and include stories, comprehension questions, activities, teaching strategies, worksheets, tests, scope and sequence charts of reading skills, etc.
Connected Instruction
A way of teaching systematically in which the teacher continually shows and discusses with the students the relationship between what has been learned, what is being learned, and what will be learned.
Continuous Assessment
An element of responsive instruction in which the teacher regularly monitors student performance to determine how closely it matches the instructional goal; ideally, these checks of student performance should occur after as many practice sessions as possible.
Curriculum-based assessment
A type of informal assessment in which the procedures directly assess student performance in learning targeted content in order to make decisions about how to better address a student’s instructional needs.
Decoding
The ability to translate a word from print to speech.
Dyscalculia
A severe difficulty understanding and using symbols or functions needed for success in mathematics.
Dysgraphia
A severe processing difficulty producing handwriting that is not legible and written at an age-appropriate speed.
Dyslexia (specific developmental dyslexia)
A type of learning disability; under Federal law, a specific language-based disorder characterized by problems in learning to read, write, and spell.
Dysnomia
Marked difficulty in remembering names or recalling words needed for oral and/or written language.
