Disabilities

Autism

A student with autism has a developmental delay, generally evident before age three and significantly affecting verbal and non-verbal communication and social interaction that adversely affects educational performance. Other characteristics often associated with autism are engagement in repetitive activities and stereotyped movements, resistance to environmental change or change in daily routines and unusual responses to sensory experiences.  The term does not include students with characteristics of a behavioral impairment.

Deaf/Blindness

A student who is deaf/blind exhibits concomitant hearing and visual impairments, the combination of which causes such severe communication and other developmental and educational needs that the student cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for children with deafness or children with blindness.

Deafness

A student who is deaf has a hearing impairment that is so severe that the student is impaired in processing linguistic information through hearing; with or without amplification that adversely affects the student’s educational performance.

Emotional Disturbance

A student with an emotional disturbance has a condition, which exhibits one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time, and to a marked degree that adversely affects the student’s educational performance.

        A. An inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory or health factors.

        B. An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers

        C. Inappropriate types of behaviors or feelings under normal circumstances.

        D. A general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression.

        E. A tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems.

The term includes schizophrenia. The term does not apply to students who are “socially maladjusted.”

Hearing Impairment

A student who has a hearing impairment has an impairment in hearing whether permanent or fluctuating and that adversely affects the student’s educational performance but who is not included under the definition of deafness.

Intellectual Disability

A student with intellectual disability exhibits significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behaviors and manifested during the developmental period that adversely affect the student’s educational performance.

Multiple Disabilities

A student with multiple disabilities exhibits concomitant impairments (such as intellectual disability and behavioral impairments, orthopedic impairment, etc) the combination of which such severe educational needs that the student cannot be accommodated in special educational programs solely for one of the impairments.  The term does not include students who are deaf/blind.

Orthopedic Impairment

A student with an orthopedic impairment exhibits a severe orthopedic impairment that adversely affects the student’s educational performance.  The term includes impairments caused by a congenital anomaly, impairments caused by disease (e.g., poliomyelitis, bone tuberculosis) and impairments from other causes (e.g., cerebral palsy, amputations and fractures or burns that cause contractures).

Other Health Impairment

A student with a health impairment exhibits a a limited strength, vitality or alertness, including a heightened alertness to environmental stimuli, that results in limited alertness with respect to the educational environment, that is due to chronic or acute health problems, such as asthma, attention deficit disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, diabetes, epilepsy, a heart condition, hemophilia, lead poisoning, leukemia, nephritis, rheumatic fever or sickle cell anemia, Tourette Syndrome and adversely affects the student's educational performance. 

Specific Learning Disability

A student with a learning disability exhibits a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or using language, spoken or written, which manifests itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do mathematical calculations, including conditions such as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia and developmental aphasia.  Specific Learning disabilities does not include learning problems that are primarily the result of visual, hearing or motor disabilities, of intellectual disability, of emotional disturbance, or environmental, cultural or economical disadvantage.

The IEP may determine that a student has a specific learning disability if the team finds a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes AND the student does not achieve adequately for the child's age or to meet State-approved grade-level standards in more of more of the following areas, when provided with learning experiences and instruction appropriate for the child's age or State-approved grade level standards:

        - Oral expression

        - Listening comprehension

        - Written expression

        - Basic reading skill

        - Reading fluency skills

        - Reading comprehension

        - Mathematics calculation

        - Mathematics problem solving

Speech and Language Impairment

A student with a speech and language impairment exhibits a communication disorder such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment, or a voice impairment that adversely affects the student’s educational performance.

Traumatic Brain Injury

A student with a traumatic brain injury has received an injury to the brain caused by an external physical force resulting in total or partial functional disability or psychosocial impairment or both that adversely affects a student's educational performance.  The term applies to open or closed head injuries resulting in impairments in one or more areas, such as cognition; language; memory; attention; reasoning; abstract thinking; judgment; problem solving; sensory, perceptual and motor abilities; psychosocial behavior; physical functions; information processing; and speech. The term does not include brain injuries that are congenital or degenerative or brain injuries induced by birth trauma.

Visual Impairment including Blindness

A student with a visual impairment has, after the best possible correction, a limitation of vision, which adversely affects the student’s educational performance.  The term includes both partially sighted and blind students.