NCEO has published a report titled Alternate Assessments for Students with Significant Cognitive Disabilities: Participation Guidelines and Definitions (NCEO Report 406). This report documents the status of states’ alternate assessment based on alternate achievement standards (AA-AAS) participation guidelines and definitions of students with significant cognitive disabilities as of August, 2017. The report includes the factors that states indicated should and should not be considered when making decisions about participation in the AA-AAS. It also documents the format of the guidelines that states made available to decision makers. Finally, it examines the extent to which states provided an explicit definition of “students with the most significant cognitive disabilities.”

At the beginning of the 2017-18 school year, all states had AA-AAS participation guidelines for decision makers. The most common formats used were checklists to facilitate and document the decision-making process for individual students and the description of participation criteria in text form. The three most common student characteristics included in the assessment participation criteria were that the student had: (a) significant cognitive disabilities or low intellectual and adaptive functioning; (b) extensive, intensive, individualized instruction and supports; and (c) use of an alternate or modified curriculum. Seventeen states provided explicit, publicly available definitions of “students with the most significant cognitive disabilities.” The report provides an overview of the definitions.