I believe a teacher's aid is an aide assigned to the classroom to help the teacher with all of the kids. My son is SpEd classroom this year with 1 teacher and 1 aide. This aide would be classified as a teacher's aide because she's there to help all the kids.
Last year my son had a 1:1 aide in kindergarten. This was a personal aide, just for him. She helped the teacher out when she didn't need to be with C (like when he was in speech therapy) but her purpose was to be HIS aide, not the teacher's aide.
From what I've seen, typically special ed classrooms, whether they be preschool classes or grade school classes, tend to have 1 - 2 aides (these would be "teachers aids") depending on the size of the class and the needs of the kids. I haven't personally seen many kids in SpEd classes with 1:1 "personal" aides. However, it is not uncommon for a child with a disability that is mainstreamed to have a 1:1 aide for support in the mainstream classroom.
My guess is to have a 1:1 aide within a self-contained classroom, a child would have to be pretty severely affected. However, to have a 1:1 aide in a mainstream class, I've seen this service given to many mildly affected kids, like my son.
can anyone tell me where i can find the definition of a personal aide and the definition of a teachers aide. they dont want to provide one and are lying about their functions. theyve also admitted theyve given them before for the program. they keep saying if he needs that much help that maybe the public school early preschool program probably isnt appropriate for him, while it was suited for another child a year ago with the same needs.