Some of the common characteristics of deafness commonly found in classrooms include:

• Difficulty following verbal directions

• Difficulty with oral expression

• Some difficulties with social/emotional or interpersonal skills

• Will often have a degree of language delay

• Often follows and rarely leads

• Will usually exhibit some form of articulation difficulty

• Can become easily frustrated if their needs are not met

• Sometimes the use of hearing aids leads to embarrassment and fear of rejection from peers

Autism, refers to “a developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, generally evident before age three, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance. Traits commonly related to the condition:

Social communication challenges:

• Spoken language (around a third of people with autism are nonverbal)

• Gestures

• Eye contact

• Facial expressions

• Tone of voice

• Expressions not meant to be taken literally

• Recognizing emotions and intentions in others

• Recognizing one’s own emotions

• Expressing emotions

• Seeking emotional comfort from others

• Feeling overwhelmed in social situations

• Taking turns in conversation

• Gauging personal space (appropriate distance between people)

• Restricted and repetitive behaviors

• Repetitive body movements (e.g. rocking, flapping, spinning, running back and forth)

• Repetitive motions with objects (e.g. spinning wheels, shaking sticks, flipping levers)

• Staring at lights or spinning objects

• Ritualistic behaviors (e.g. lining up objects, repeatedly touching objects in a set order)

• Narrow or extreme interests in specific topics

• Need for unvarying routine/resistance to change (e.g. same daily schedule, meal menu, clothes, route to school)

• Resistance to environmental change or change in daily routines

• Unusual responses to sensory experiences

Children who are deaf/blind have impairments of sight and hearing that require thoughtful and unique educational approaches to ensure that children with this disability have the opportunity to reach their full potential. The range of sensory impairments included in the term “deaf-blindness” is great.

Students with an emotional disturbance sometimes display acting out behaviors that may include:

• Noncompliance

• Ignoring the teacher

• Not following directions

• Hitting, fighting, yelling out, destruction of property, stealing

• Depression

• Mood or anxiety concerns

• Difficulty understanding the expectations of friendship

• Not getting along with peers and teachers

• Difficulty understanding the expectations of friendship.

• Seeming out of touch with reality

Individuals with ID have intellectual deficits as well as deficits in adaptive functioning in the conceptual, social and practical domains.

The signs of an intellectual disability may include:

• Slow language development

• Slow development of pre-academic skills

• Difficulties in academic learning (reading, writing, mathematics)

• Difficulty understanding concepts of time and money

• Problems with abstract thinking (concrete approach to problem solving)

• Difficulties in executive function (planning, strategizing, priority setting, cognitive flexibility)

• Problems with short term memory

• Difficulties with functional use of academic skills

• Difficulties with personal care

• Difficulties with household task

• Difficulties with recreational skills

Having multiple disabilities means that a person has more than one disability

A child may be considered to be a child with non-categorical early childhood disability if:

• The child is between the ages of three to five

• The child meets the specific eligibility criteria for Intellectual Disability

• The child meets the specific eligibility criteria for Emotional Disturbance

• The child meets the specific eligibility criteria for a Specific Learning Disability

• The child meets the specific eligibility criteria for Autism

Common characteristics of orthopedic impairment involve problems using hands, arms and legs.

Other Health Impairment exists as an umbrella term encompassing hundreds of types of impairments that may result in a chronic condition limiting the individual’s ability to effectively access the educational environment.

Students with the predominately inattentive type of AD/HD may exhibit:

• Does not pay attention to detail and often makes mistakes across many activities

• Has difficulty maintaining attention during activities

• Does not complete school work or other assigned activities

• Has difficulty with organization activities

• Avoid activities that require mental effort or concentration

• Loses materials necessary to complete assignments

• Easily distracted

• Forgetful in many activities

• Fidgets or squirms in seat

• Gets up or leaves seat frequently during class

• Talks excessively

• Blurts out answers

• Has difficulty waiting for their turn

• Interrupts others

A child with a learning disability often has several related signs and these persist over time.

• Difficulty with reading and/or writing

• Problems with math skills

• Difficulty remembering

• Problems paying attention

• Trouble following directions

• Poor coordination

• Difficulty with concepts related to time

• Problems staying organized

• Processing strengths

• Processing weaknesses

• Academic strengths

• Academic weaknesses

• Inconsistent school performance

• Difficulty listening well

• Problems understanding words or concepts

A child with a speech impairment may exhibit the following:

• Struggles to say sounds or words

• Repetition of words or parts of words

• Speaks in short, fragmented phrases

• Says words in the wrong order

• Struggles with using words and understanding others

• Difficulty imitating speech sounds

• Inconsistent errors

• Slow rate of speech

• Slurred speech

• Slow or rapid rate of speech, often with a mumbling quality

A child may be considered to be a child with a traumatic brain injury if, the child has an acquired injury to the brain caused by an external physical force and the injury results in total or partial functional disability or psychosocial impairment. Indicators may include:

• Fatigue

• Headaches

• Visual disturbances

• Memory Loss

• Poor attention/concentration

• Sleep disturbances

• Dizziness/loss of balance

• Irritability

• Feelings of depression

• Seizures

• Mood changes

• Getting lost or confused

• Slowness in thinking

A child with a visual impairment may display characteristics of:

• Not looking at others in the eye

• Reaching in front of or beyond an object

• Holding objects very close or very far to see them

• Turning or tilting head when using eyes

• Looking above, below or off to one side of an object, rather than directly at it

• Bumping into objects and having a lot or trouble seeing at night

• Feeling for objects on the ground instead of looking with their eyes

Preschool

• Delay in learning to talk

• Difficulty with rhyming

• Difficulty pronouncing words (e.g., “pusgetti” for “spaghetti,” “mawn lower” for “lawn mower”)

• Poor auditory memory for nursery rhymes and chants

• Difficulty adding new vocabulary words

• Inability to recall the right word (word retrieval)

• Trouble learning and naming letters and numbers and remembering the letters in his/ her name

• Aversion to print (e.g., doesn’t enjoy following along if a book is read aloud)

Kindergarten and First Grade

• Difficulty breaking words into smaller parts, or syllables (e.g., “baseball” can be pulled apart into “base” “ball” or “napkin” can be pulled apart into “nap” “kin”)

• Difficulty identifying and manipulating sounds in syllables (e.g., “man” sounded out as /m/ /ă/ /n/)

• Difficulty remembering the names of letters and recalling their corresponding sounds

• Difficulty decoding single words (reading single words in isolation)

• Difficulty spelling words the way they sound (phonetically) or remembering letter sequences in very common words seen often in print (e.g., “sed” for “said”)

Second Grade and Third Grade

Many of the previously described behaviors remain problematic along with the following:

• Difficulty recognizing common sight words (e.g., “to,” “said,” “been”)

• Difficulty decoding single words

• Difficulty recalling the correct sounds for letters and letter patterns in reading

• Difficulty connecting speech sounds with appropriate letter or letter combinations and omitting

• letters in words for spelling (e.g., “after” spelled “eftr”)

• Difficulty reading fluently (e.g., reading is slow, inaccurate, and/or without expression)

• Difficulty decoding unfamiliar words in sentences using knowledge of phonics

• Reliance on picture clues, story theme, or guessing at words

• Difficulty with written expression

Fourth Grade through Sixth Grade

Many of the previously described behaviors remain problematic along with the following:

• Difficulty reading aloud (e.g., fear of reading aloud in front of classmates)

• Avoidance of reading (particularly for pleasure)

• Difficulty reading fluently (e.g., reading is slow, inaccurate, and/or without expression)

• Difficulty decoding unfamiliar words in sentences using knowledge of phonics

• Acquisition of less vocabulary due to reduced independent reading

• Use of less complicated words in writing that are easier to spell than more appropriate words (e.g., “big” instead of “enormous”)

• Reliance on listening rather than reading for comprehension

Middle School and High School

Many of the previously described behaviors remain problematic along with the following:

• Difficulty with the volume of reading and written work

• Frustration with the amount of time required and energy expended for reading

• Difficulty reading fluently (e.g., reading isslow, inaccurate, and/or without expression)

• Difficulty decoding unfamiliar words in sentences using knowledge of phonics

• Difficulty with written assignments

• Tendency to avoid reading (particularly for pleasure)

• Difficulty learning a foreign language

The characteristics of dysgraphia include the following:

• Variably shaped and poorly formed letters

• Excessive erasures and cross-outs

• Poor spacing between letters and words

• Letter and number reversals beyond early stages of writing

• Awkward, inconsistent pencil grip

• Heavy pressure and hand fatigue

• Slow writing and copying with legible or illegible handwriting (Andrews & Lombardino, 2014)

Additional consequences of dysgraphia may also include:

• Difficulty with unedited written spelling

• Low volume of written output as well as problems with other aspects of written expression