Reagan Sauls was quoted in Special Ed Connection about discerning a student's behavior when it is a manifestation of his or her disability. When teams conduct a manifestation determination review, they must answer a key question about whether a child's conduct was caused by or had a direct and substantial relationship to the child's disability. 

"This question is the one that causes the most heartburn for teams," Reagan told the publication. "I would say that in 50% of the cases, you have to pull at all the different threads to determine whether or not the conduct is a manifestation of a student's disability."

Teams should check if a student has a behavioral intervention plan or an individualized education program (IEP) that has goals related to the student's behavior. "A teacher may say the behavior hasn't been an issue before," Reagan said.

Teams should consider all information parents share in the manifestation determination review, including any new evaluations or behaviors they're seeing at home, Reagan continued. But teams should recognize that if the behavior that happened at school is not happening at home, it may not be related to the disability. "If the behavior was really the direct result of the disability, wouldn't this be happening across the board?" Reagan said. "Wouldn't this be happening in more than one class or at home? Maybe not, but maybe you need to get more information."

You can read the full article by clicking here: Discern When Behavior Has Direct Tie to Student's Disability

Special Ed Connection is a go-to source for more than 2,500 school districts.