Project Find Glossary

Advocacy Organizations: Groups that can help families understand their rights. They can also speak or act on a family’s behalf.

Advocate: A person who speaks or acts on behalf of an issue or person.

Appeal: A request to have a situation or decision investigated at a higher level. A final decision is then made at that higher level.

Assistive Technology: Equipment or devices that help your child. They help your child increase, maintain, or improve what they can do.

Audiology Services: Services and ideas for a family so they can support their child’s hearing.

Civil Action: A lawsuit filed in state or federal court.

Complaint: A claim that a law or a set of regulations has been violated. The claim would be about how the system has failed to comply with the state and/or federal regulations.

Consent to Evaluate: A form that gives permission to Early On to evaluate a child. The form must tell what an evaluation is, how it will happen, and why. The evaluation cannot happen until the parent signs this form.

Developmental Delay: When a child’s rate of growth and learning is different from that of most children the same age.

Diagnostic Medical Services: Support and information given by a licensed physician. They help you decide if a child needs early intervention services.

Due Process Hearing: A formal process used to try to resolve disagreements. The hearing is conducted with a neutral person, the Hearing Officer, who listens to the evidence and arguments of the parents and the agencies and decides who is right and who must do what.

Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA): A federal law protecting personally identifiable information that is held in a child’s education record.

Hearing Officer: A trained, impartial person who helps resolve disagreements.

Individualized: It is about you and your child’s own life and needs. Every child and family is different.

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA): The federal law that guides the education of children with disabilities. Part C of the IDEA law tells how each state needs to plan and provide their early intervention system. It also explains the rights families have.

Intermediate School District (ISD): An education agency that helps oversee Early On and special education in local areas. ISDs are sometimes called RESDs or RESAs.

Mediation: An informal process with a neutral person, the mediator, who meets with the parents and the agencies to see if they can come to an agreement about resolving their dispute.

Mediator: A trained, impartial person who facilitates problem-solving.

Michigan Department of Education: The unit that oversees Early On in all intermediate and local school districts around Michigan. Early On funding comes through the Michigan Department of Education.

Multidisciplinary Evaluation: An evaluation to learn about your child’s growth and development. It is done by at least two people with different skills and training.

Native Language: The language or mode of communication typically used by a family.

Parent: Any person responsible for the care and well-being of a child. It could include birth parents, adoptive parents, single parents, guardians, grandparents, or foster parents.

Personally Identifiable Information: Information that includes, but is not limited to the child’s name, name of the child’s parent or other family member, the address of the child or the child’s family, a personal identifier such as the parent or child’s social security number, a list of personal characteristics or other information that would make the identity of the child or family reasonably certain.

Priorities: What a parent thinks is most important for their child and family.

Procedural Safeguards: Actions or guidelines that are in place to guard your rights.

PSS 340.0000(x): This is a reference to another document, the Early On Procedural Safeguard Standards. The Procedural SafeguardStandards contain the legal language about a family’s rights whenthey are involved with Early On. “PSS” means the document itself,“340” means that this is about Early On rights, and the remaining numbers and letters help you find specific sections of the standards.

Public Agency Provider: A public agency that provides Early On services.

Referral: A recommendation to have a child evaluated for Early On. The referral starts the Early On process. It occurs because of a concern about a child’s development or health issue.

Resources: The people, places, relationships, supports, and services a family already has that could help their child.

Rights: Checks and balances that are built into the Early On system to assure that the Early On process happens as it is supposed to for children and families. Rights are the legal safeguards that a family is entitled to.

Service Coordinator: The family’s main contact in Early On. This person supports and assists the family the entire time they are in Early On. He or she knows about and has worked with children with developmental delays.

Services: When a trained professional works directly with a child or helps a family learn how to support their child.

Support Groups: Groups who meet to support each other.

Supports: Help, resources, or information.

Surrogate Parent: A surrogate parent is a person who is appointed to represent the rights of a child when the child’s natural parents cannot be found or when the natural parents have had their rights terminated.

Transition: When a child and family leaves Early On to go to a new program, activity, or area.

Written Prior Notice: Written information given to the parents to inform them ahead of time about a proposed action or change.