ED 509 Special Education: Foundations and Characteristics: Web Resources

The Council for Exceptional Children is a professional association of educators dedicated to advancing the success of children with exceptionalities. They accomplish their mission through advocacy, standards, and professional development.

The IRIS Center is a national center dedicated to improving education outcomes for all children, especially those with disabilities birth through age twenty-one, through the use of effective evidence-based practices and interventions.They are funded through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP)

The National Association of Special Education Teachers (NASET) is a national membership organization dedicated to rendering all possible support and assistance to those preparing for or teaching in the field of special education.

NCLD is an advocacy group that represents children and adults nationwide with learning and attention issues —by empowering parents and young adults, transforming schools and advocating for equal rights and opportunities. We’re working to create a society in which every individual possesses the academic, social and emotional skills needed to succeed in school, at work and in life. They have multiple programs (understood.org and RTI Action Network- to name a few) for children, parents, and educators.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a law that makes available a free appropriate public education to eligible children with disabilities throughout the nation and ensures special education and related services to those children.

Provides information and external links about laws, statistics, and resources available in The Commonwealth of Virginia.

OER Commons are teaching and learning materials that you may freely use and reuse at no cost, and without needing to ask permission. Unlike copyrighted resources, OER have been authored or created by an individual or organization that chooses to retain few, if any, ownership rights. They link to many inclusive lesson plans and resources for special educators.

Teaching Tolerance provides free resources to educators who work with children from kindergarten through high school. Under classroom resources they have over 400 lesson plans on inclusion and a wealth of teaching strategies.

AIM-VA provides accessible instructional materials to eligible Virginia K-12 students who have an Individualized Education Program (IEP). Accessible instructional materials are alternate print materials, (e.g., braille, electronic files) used by students who are not able to use traditional print formats

TechMatrix is a product of the National Center for Technology Innovation. Provides a searchable database of over 400 assistive and educational technology tools and resources to support learning for students with disabilities and their classmates.

NCAM's mission is to expand access to present and future media for people with disabilities; to explore how existing access technologies may benefit other populations; to represent its constituents in industry, policy and legislative circles; and to provide access to educational and media technologies for special needs students.

Learn simple but important ways to evaluate your edtech choices