Special Education Teacher License Test Content: 6 Domains, 18 Standards and Weights

Last verified: 31 October 2026. Our sources are the Candidate Guide for the Professional License Test for Special Education teachers and the Learning Disabilities teacher standards (which include the ten general special education standards), both published by the Education and Training Evaluation Commission (ETEC) (1441 AH / 2020 edition; the guide is a trial edition and the latest available). This guide is independent: it is not affiliated with ETEC, Qiyas (the National Center for Assessment), the Ministry of Education or any government body.

In short: the Special Education test has two parts: a general part shared by every special education track, worth 47%, and a part for your own track, worth 53%. This page covers the general part and the Learning Disabilities track: six domains and 18 standards. The largest is General Principles of Special Education at 25%, then General Principles of Learning Disabilities at 20% and Planning Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities at 17%.

One test, two parts, seven tracks

The guide publishes a weight table for each specialised track, and a candidate is tested in their own track only: the general part (47%) + the part for your track (53%). The seven tracks are:

• Learning disabilities (table on page 7)
• Intellectual disability
• Autism
• Hearing impairment
• Visual impairment
• Behavioural training
• Speech training

This site covers the whole general part and the Learning Disabilities track. If your track is a different one (intellectual disability or autism, for example), the general part here is the same 47% of your test and you can practise it, but our questions do not yet cover the specialised part.

Test format

The six domains and their weights

These weights come from the two tables on pages 6 and 7 of the candidate guide. ETEC publishes the weight at domain level only, so there is no published weight for each standard.

Each question measures one indicator, and the test does not have to cover every indicator.

The 18 standards one by one

The standard names are as in the standards document, and the numbers use the format we work with (6.13.1.x for the general part, 6.13.2.x for the learning disabilities track). The "What it measures" column is our summary of each standard's indicators. The weight in each heading is that of the whole domain, not of the standard.

The general part (47%)

General Principles of Special Education (25%)

Planning Instruction in Special Education (15%)

Motivating and Supporting Learning in Special Education (7%)

The learning disabilities track (53%)

General Principles of Learning Disabilities (20%)

Planning Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities (17%)

Motivating and Supporting Learners with Learning Disabilities (16%)

The question style in ETEC's guide

The guide gives ten sample questions with the reasoning behind each answer, then 28 practice questions with an answer key. They show the pattern of the test:

• Student-case situations: a seven-year-old with a mild delay in expressive language and otherwise typical abilities, so which placement suits him? The answer is a regular class all day with speech and language therapy. And a student trained to use the toilet who now does so at home without help, which is an example of maintaining a behaviour.
• The IEP and assessment: which element an IEP should contain (the present level of performance), which type of assessment helps most in writing its goals (criterion-referenced tests and behavioural checklists), and who sits on the multidisciplinary team that assesses a student.
• Roles and partnership: the most suitable role for the special education teacher in an inclusive setting (planning the lesson and teaching together with the general education teacher for every student in the class), and the role of families in early intervention (cooperating with the specialists).
• Causes and concepts: the prenatal factor linked to Down syndrome (the mother's age), the basis for using task analysis (teaching in steps that are easy to achieve), and a teacher using stars to reinforce good behaviour as an example of behaviourist theory.

The questions test applying knowledge to a student case or a classroom situation, so memorising definitions is not enough. ETEC itself notes that the guide's examples do not cover every aspect of the test and do not show how hard the real questions are.

How to use this table when you study

1. Start with the free questions to see which domains are weakest for you.
2. Order your time by weight: general principles of special education first (25%), then general principles of learning disabilities (20%), then planning instruction for learning disabilities (17%). The eight-week plan is built on these weights.
3. Do not neglect the smaller domains. Planning instruction in special education (15%) and motivating and supporting learning (7%) together make up 22% of the questions.
4. The IEP shows up in four standards (6.13.1.4, 6.13.2.15, 6.13.2.16 and 6.13.2.18), so master it in the general standard and then apply it to learning disabilities.

Your score on our questions is an estimate of your readiness, not an official result. Each unit in unit practice is one of these six domains, so if the free questions show weakness in assessment and diagnosis or in the IEP, for example, practise that domain on its own.