FTCE Exceptional Student Education K-12 Online Center
This FTCE Exceptional Student Education K-12 Online Center brings together practice, lessons, worksheets, flashcards and review tools. Choose the resource that matches the skill you want to work on next.
FTCE Exceptional Student Education Practice Center
Take a full form, then read the explanation under every question you missed. Three competencies carry sixty-five percent of this exam between them, so score them separately from the smaller three.
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FTCE Exceptional Student Education K-12 at a glance
This is Florida’s certification exam for exceptional student education across K through 12. Florida redeveloped the content framework, so if your study guide has seven competencies with a standalone professional practice section, it is the older version: the current framework has six, and collaboration, professional roles, and legal and ethical standards all sit inside the first one.
| Test code | 061 (Exceptional Student Education K-12) |
|---|---|
| Status | Current. The code did not change, but Florida redeveloped the competencies and skills, so check that your materials match the current framework. |
| Number of questions | Approximately 80 multiple-choice questions, with four options each. There is no constructed response. |
| Item types | Direct questions, sentence completions, and scenario or command items. |
| Time limit | 2 hours 30 minutes |
| Format | Computer-based |
| Passing score | A scaled score of at least 200. Florida reports PASS for candidates who pass and a numerical score for those who do not. |
Florida publishes a weighting for every competency and they sum to one hundred: Foundations 23 percent, Instructional practices 21 percent, Multiple literacies and communication skills 21 percent, Assessment and evaluation 13 percent, Positive behavioral interventions and supports 12 percent, and the Transition process 10 percent. The first three are sixty-five percent between them.
The six competencies, in plain language
Florida states each competency and lists the skills under it. Here is what each one asks of you, with its published weight.
Competency 1: Foundations (23 percent)
The largest competency, and it absorbs what used to be a separate professional practice area.
- The disability categories and their characteristics
- Child find, evaluation, and eligibility
- The IEP process and its components
- Least restrictive environment
- Legal and ethical standards, in principle
- Collaboration with families and stakeholders
- Working with and coaching paraprofessionals
- Professional roles and outside agencies
Competency 3: Instructional practices (21 percent)
What you do with the student.
- Explicit and systematic instruction
- Accommodations against modifications
- Universal design for learning and differentiation
- Assistive technology
- Task analysis, prompting, and fading
- Access to the general curriculum
- Self-determination and independence
Competency 5: Multiple literacies and communication skills (21 percent)
Reading, writing, mathematics, and communication.
- Structured literacy and reading instruction for struggling readers
- Writing instruction and its supports
- Mathematics instruction for students with disabilities
- Augmentative and alternative communication
- Language development and communication supports
- Content-area literacy
Competency 2: Assessment and evaluation (13 percent)
Gathering evidence and using it.
- Formal and informal assessment
- Non-discriminatory evaluation
- Progress monitoring and curriculum-based measurement
- Statewide assessment participation and alternate assessment
- Interpreting data and changing instruction
Competency 4: Positive behavioral interventions and supports (12 percent)
Behavior, understood as communication.
- Functional behavior assessment
- Behavior intervention plans
- Antecedent, behavior, consequence analysis
- Reinforcement and its schedules
- Multi-tiered behavior support
- Crisis prevention and de-escalation
Competency 6: The transition process (10 percent)
Life after school, planned for early.
- Transition planning and post-secondary goals
- Self-determination and student-led planning
- Employment, independent living, and community participation
- Agency linkages and adult services
- Transfer of rights at the age of majority
A study routine for a 150-minute exam
Eighty questions in two and a half hours is comfortable, so this is a coverage problem rather than a speed problem. Florida publishes the weights, so let them do the planning.
Complete topic map
The skills Florida publishes under each of the six competencies, with their weights.
Competency 001: Knowledge of foundations of exceptional student education
- 01Identify state and federal legislation that governs the education of students with exceptionalities
- 02Apply the classification criteria for student exceptionalities under current state and federal requirements
- 03Distinguish typical from atypical development across physical, cognitive, linguistic, social, and emotional domains
- 04Interpret legal and ethical standards that govern the provision of education for students with exceptionalities
- 05Identify and apply the requirements for developing IEPs, educational plans, and transition IEPs
- 06Evaluate systemwide support models that provide curriculum access and promote high achievement
- 07Apply effective methods of communication, consultation, and collaboration with students, parents or guardians, caregivers, and other stakeholders
- 08Select coaching and supervision methods for supporting paraprofessionals and volunteers
- 09Recognize the roles of professionals, advocacy organizations, and agencies that serve students with exceptionalities
- 10Analyze factors that contribute to disproportionality in special education
Competency 002: Knowledge of assessment and evaluation
- 11Determine the purposes and characteristics of different types of assessments and their appropriate use with students with exceptionalities
- 12Apply the legal requirements and ethical principles that govern assessment of students with exceptionalities
- 13Identify measurement concepts such as reliability and validity, and the characteristics and uses of norm-referenced and criterion-referenced assessments
- 14Determine the purposes and requirements for participation of students with disabilities in the statewide assessment program
- 15Translate formal and informal assessment results into decisions that address student needs
- 16Analyze assessment data to identify student needs and to evaluate progress in acquiring, generalizing, and maintaining skills
Competency 003: Knowledge of instructional practices in exceptional student education
- 17Select reliable sources of evidence-based instructional practices and interventions
- 18Apply instructional approaches, strategies, and materials based on assessment of the student’s educational needs
- 19Choose instructional strategies that promote generalization of knowledge and skills across content areas and settings
- 20Distinguish core curriculum, supplemental programs, and intensive interventions within a multi-tiered system of supports
- 21Apply techniques for differentiating, accommodating, and modifying classroom instruction to meet educational needs
- 22Apply flexible grouping strategies for academic, behavioral, and social instructional activities
- 23Select print and nonprint media and materials that match student needs and interests
- 24Analyze the characteristics of specialized instructional approaches for students with significant disabilities
Competency 004: Knowledge of positive behavioral interventions and supports
- 25Identify and choose prevention and intensive intervention strategies for students who display challenging behaviors
- 26Distinguish among the concepts and models of positive behavioral interventions and supports
- 27Interpret individual and group data to apply interventions that increase positive behavior
- 28Interpret the essential elements of a functional behavior assessment and evaluate the effects of a behavior intervention plan
Competency 005: Knowledge of multiple literacies and communication skills
- 29Identify standards-based language development skills and the components of language structure
- 30Distinguish among the characteristics of communication disorders and their impact on academic achievement
- 31Identify assistive technology and augmentative or alternative communication systems that facilitate communication
- 32Determine the sequence of reading development and the critical components of reading proficiency
- 33Apply specialized instructional strategies that address phonological processing deficits within standards-based reading instruction
- 34Apply evidence-based instructional methods for increasing proficiency in phonics, word recognition, and fluency
- 35Apply evidence-based methods for literacy development across content areas, with integrated interventions and accommodations
- 36Determine and apply strategies for facilitating critical thinking, executive functioning, and metacognition
- 37Select and apply evidence-based methods for teaching writing, with integrated interventions and accommodations
- 38Apply evidence-based instructional methods for mathematics, with integrated interventions and accommodations
Competency 006: Knowledge of the transition process
- 39Identify appropriate programs for transition to academic, technical, and career education and development
- 40Interpret and apply the results of transition assessments to determine planning strategies
- 41Select instructional approaches that help students with exceptionalities engage in self-determination and self-advocacy
- 42Identify and compare resources and strategies that assist individual students with exceptionalities to function independently
Before test day
Two principles decide most of the hard items. Choose the least intrusive support that actually works, then plan how to fade it, because the goal is a student who does it without you. And treat behavior as communication: the right answer usually asks what the behavior is getting the student before it decides what to do about it, which is why a functional behavior assessment comes before a behavior intervention plan rather than alongside it.
A USEFUL NEXT STEP
FTCE Exceptional Student Education K-12: study questions
What can I study in this FTCE Exceptional Student Education K-12 Online Center?
This FTCE Exceptional Student Education K-12 Online Center includes practice, lessons, worksheets, flashcards and review tools. Topics on the page include Competency 1: Foundations (23 percent), Competency 3: Instructional practices (21 percent), Competency 5: Multiple literacies and communication skills (21 percent).
How should I use the FTCE Exceptional Student Education K-12 resources?
Choose a topic or practice activity from this Online Center. Review the linked explanation, try the practice, and use the result to decide what to study next. Check each resource’s directions for its format and access requirements.
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