Understanding ED Eligibility for SPED Advocates*

Emotional Disability (ED) is one of the most contentious, complicated, and misunderstood eligibility categories in special education. If you are an advocate or legal professional who has the basics down but needs a deeper, objective understanding of ED evaluations, this workshop is designed for you. Rather than focusing on general advocacy tactics, this session dives straight into the clinical and psychometric mechanics of ED eligibility. Tactical tools only go so far when a team is stuck. Real, foundational knowledge of eligibility criteria, taught by an impartial regional expert can't be easily dismissed. Peaceful IEP Navigators™ (PINs) aims to level the IEP table through transparent, rigorous education for everyone at the IEP table. While we can’t make you a psychologist in three hours, we will give you the objective insights needed to analyze ED evaluations with greatly increased confidence and precision.

A Note on Ethics & Scope: To maintain complete clinical impartiality and avoid any conflict of interest, IEEs (including what they are, who is a good candidate, and how to request one, etc) are not discussed at all during this workshop.

What You'll Learn

• Surveys: Determine which surveys are most relevant for your clients based on the referral question — and when the test publisher manual says to discard them.
• The "Diagnostic Trio" ED/OHI/SLD: Learn just how challenging it is to differentiate between them and what that means for eligibility.
• "But they are so great at school": Ensuring internalizing students aren't denied services due to a lack of observable behaviors.
• Social Maladjustment: Learn federal definition (hint: there isn't one), why the psychologist who created the term hates it, and whether it can be used as an exclusionary factor.