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R

Reactive Attachment Disorder: A disorder that develops in infants and young children as the result of emotional or physical neglect or abuse; children with the disorder have social skills delays and difficulty bonding with others.

Receptive Language (or receptive speech): The ability to understand spoken and written communication as well as gestures.

Hearing spoken language from another person and deciphering it into a meaningful mental picture or thought pattern, which is understood and then used by the recipient.

Redirection: Intentionally changing the focus of attention from one stimulus to another in an effort to avoid or curtail an unwanted burgeoning behavior; a nonpunitive approach to shaping behavior.

Referral: The request to identify and assess a child's special education needs, usually made by a parent, teacher, or medical personnel.

Reflex: An involuntary; unlearned response to a stimulus.

Regression: The loss of skill or ability.

Reinforcement: Any consequence that increases the likelihood of the future occurrence of a behavior. A consequence is either presented or withheld in an effort to prompt the desired response. See Positive Reinforcement; Negative Reinforcement.

Reinforcement Menu: A list of extrinsic reinforces from which the student may choose after successfully completing an assigned task.

Reinforcer: Anything positive that follows behavior and increases that behavior, including social praise, desired food, or toys.  Conversely, a negative reinforcer will decrease behavior, as it prompts a reaction that the person will try to avoid.

Related Services: Services that enable a child to benefit from special education. Related services include speech-language, occupational, and physical therapies, as well as transportation.

Relationship Development Intervention (RDI): A program that employs specific exercises and activities to teach interpersonal social skills.

Reliability: In psychological testing, the degree to which a test produces about the same results each time a particular individual is administered that test.

Remediation: In special education, programming which improves the student's performance.

Repetitive Speech: Also called Echolalia. See also Perseveration.

Replacement Behaviors: The technique of developing alternative behavior options to replace unwanted behaviors.

Residential Services: Services provided to people with disabilities to enable them to live independently in their communities.  Examples include community groups homes, supervised apartments, and skill development homes.

Resource Room: A nonrestrictive environment for the child with special needs, where he or she may play for a portion of the day.

Respite Care: This service allows the primary caregiver (most often parents) of a severely disabled person an opportunity for a temporary break.

Rett's Disorder (or Rett's Syndrome) (RS): A rare pervasive developmental disorder that affects mostly females, is characterized by typical early development, and later, a pervasive loss of social, cognitive, and physical skills. Some improvement in these areas may take place in late childhood. Many children with Rett's disorder develop seizure disorders.

A disorder on the autism spectrum.  Rett's syndrome is a genetic neurological disorder seen almost exclusively in females and found in a variety of racial and ethnic groups worldwide.  It is characterized by apparently normal or near normal development until six to eighteen months of life.  A period of temporary stagnation or regression follows, during which the child loses communication skills and purposeful use of the hands.

Rett's Syndrome: See Rett's Disorder

Reverse Mainstreaming: The placement of nondisabled children in a special education classroom to play and learn with disabled children.

Rigidity: Inflexibility of behavior; needing things to happen in a very specific way in order for them to "feel right" to the child.

Ritualistic Behavior: Seemingly purposeless behavior that a child always engages in when in a particular situation. For example, on entering a room, a child may always have to turn the lights off and on twice.

Rumination: Regurgitating food and chewing on it again.