Disability Categories

Definition: a lifelong developmental disability that includes autistic disorder as described in the current version of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The disability is generally evident before three years of age and significantly affects verbal, nonverbal, or pragmatic communication and social interaction skills and results in an adverse effect on the student’s educational performance.

DSM-5 Autism criteria

Persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across contexts, not accounted for by general developmental delays, and manifest by all three of the following:

1. Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity; ranging from abnormal social approach and failure of normal back and forth conversation through reduced sharing of interests, emotions, and affect and response to total lack of initiation of social interaction.

2. Deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction; ranging from poorly integrated-verbal and nonverbal communication, through abnormalities in eye contact and body-language, or deficits in understanding and use of nonverbal communications, to total lack of facial expression or gestures

3. Deficits in developing and maintaining relationships, appropriate to developmental level (beyond those with caregivers); ranging from difficulties adjusting behavior to suit different social contexts through difficulties in sharing imaginative play and in making friends to an apparent absence of interest in people

Restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities as manifested by at least two of the following

1. Stereotyped or repetitive speech, motor movement, or use of objects; (such as simple motor stereotypes, echolalia, repetitive us of objects, or idiosyncratic phrases)

2. Excessive adherence to routines, ritualized patterns of verbal or nonverbal behavior, or excessive resistance to change; (such as motoric rituals, insistence of same routine or food, repetitive questioning or extreme distress at small changes)

3. Highly restrictive fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus; (such as strong attachment to or preoccupation with unusual objects, excessively circumscribed or perseverative interests)

4. Hyper-or hypo-reactivity to sensory input or unusual interest in sensory aspects of environment; (such as apparent indifference to pain/heat/cold, adverse response to specific sounds or textures, excessive smelling or touching of objects, fascination with lights or spinning objects)

Symptoms must be present in early childhood (but may not become fully manifest until social demands exceed limited capacities)

Autism spectrum disorder does not apply if the student’s educational performance is adversely affected primarily by

• An emotional disability

• Blindness or low vision

• Deaf-blindness

• Intellectual disability

Unless the characteristics of autism spectrum disorder are demonstrated to a greater degree than is normally attributed to these disabilities

Definition: A disability that even with best correction affects the student’s ability to use vision for learning, which adversely affects the student’s educational performance. 

• Includes a reduced ability or a complete inability to utilize the visual system to acquire

information; and

• May include or be limited to a reduction in field of vision

Definition: is manifested during the developmental period; is characterized by significant limitations in cognitive functioning; is demonstrated through limitations in adaptive behavior; and adversely affects educational performance

Mild Intellectual Disability: falls 2 standard deviations below mean (70-55); and manifests delays in adaptive behavior consistent with the mild cognitive disability

Moderate Intellectual Disability: falls 3 standard deviation below mean (55-40) and manifests delays in adaptive behavior consistent with the moderate cognitive disability

Severe Intellectual Disability: falls 4 or more standard deviation below mean (<40) and manifests delays in adaptive behavior consistent with severe cognitive disability 

Definition: referred to as a hearing impairment that means; a disability that with or without amplification adversely affects the students ability to use hearing for developing language and learning; educational performance; and developmental progress; The hearing loss may be permanent or fluctuating, mild to profound, unilateral or bilateral; students may use spoken language, sign language or combination of spoken language and signed system. 

solely a category for students who are at least three (3) years of age and less than nine (9) years of age.  A developmental delay of either 2 standard deviations below the mean (70) in one of the following developmental areas or one and one-half standard deviations below the mean (78) in any of the two following developmental areas: gross or fine motor development; cognitive development; receptive or expressive language development; social or emotional development; self-help or adaptive development

an inability to learn or progress that cannot be explained by cognitive, sensory, or health factors. Student exhibits one or more of the following characteristics:

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

A general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression;

An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships;

Inappropriate behaviors or feelings under normal circumstances;

Episodes of psychosis

 a severe physically disabling condition that adversely affects educational performance; may include impairments caused by any of the following: congenital anomaly, diseases such as poliomyelitis or bone tuberculosis, or other causes such as cerebral palsy, amputations, factures, burns that cause contractures 

Health problems that result in medications, treatments, therapies, frequent doctor’s appointments, and repeated hospitalizations can affect a student’s ability to learn and function at school.  Health problems may significantly impact academic, behavioral, social, or emotional functioning.  A student with such a condition may be considered for special education services under the category of Other Health Impairment (OHI). 

Guidelines to Use when Determining Eligibility Using the OHI Criteria:

• A medical diagnosis alone is insufficient to determine eligibility for special education services.

• Teams must establish and document a link between the chronic or acute health problem and its adverse impact on a student’s educational performance in order for a student to be determined eligible under OHI criteria.

• Students with medical diagnoses should not automatically be considered as a student with OHI.  Teams are advised to focus on the student’s presenting problems in conjunction with a full individual evaluation in order to determine eligibility for special education services.

• Students with some medical diagnoses may demonstrate educational needs that may lead teams to consider eligibility in other categories (i.e. cognitive impairment, emotional disability, traumatic brain injury, orthopedic impairment).

• When the health problem is medically managed and the student can successfully participate in school then the student may not need special education services.

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Other Health Impairment is:

• An impairment requiring a full and individual evaluation by a multidisciplinary team just like any other disability category.

• A disability due to an identified health problem with symptoms that have a moderate to severe impact on educational performance.

• A health problem that has a direct causal relationship to the student’s inability to access the general education curriculum.

• A health problem which may result in excessive absences from school or classroom for specialized treatment, and interferes with the student’s ability to maintain satisfactory academic progress in comparison to peers.

Symptoms of Other Health Impairment may include but not limited to:

• A health problem which causes fatigue which interferes with the student’s ability to remain on task and sustain effort to complete tasks at a level comparable to peers.

• A chronic and/or acute health problem resulting in a level of pain that causes limited endurance, strength or increased fatigue and distractibility.

• A level of distractibility that interferes with a student’s ability to be successful in the general education classroom.

• A level of impulsivity that interferes with a student’s ability to focus and complete activity-based classroom projects in comparison to peers.

Other Health Impairment is Not:

• A default category if the student does not meet eligibility criteria for impairment.

• Primarily due to behaviors and/or emotional concerns.

• Automatic entitlement for special education services for student with a diagnosed health problem (i.e. ADHD).

• A way to avoid difficult discussions about eligibility (i.e. labels).

•  A lack of progress attributable to motivational concerns not directly linked to the health problem.

• An eligibility category used if the student’s academic and/or developmental level is commensurate to peers.

• An eligibility category used with there is no causal link between the lack of educational progress and the identified health problem.

• An eligibility category used when the presenting health problems manifests as significant cognitive, motor or behavioral concerns which may lead the multidisciplinary team to consider other eligibility areas.

a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, that adversely affect the student’s educational performance; manifested itself when the student does not achieve adequately for the student’s age or to meet state approved grade level standards in one or more of the following areas: 

• Reading; due to difficulties in the basic reading skills, reading fluency, and/or reading comprehension

• Written Expression; 

• Math: difficulties in math calculation and/or math problem solving

• Oral expression is characterized by deficits in using expressive language process to mediate the learning of reading, writing, spelling or math

• Listening Comprehension is characterized by difficulties in using receptive language processes to mediate learning of reading, writing, spelling or math

Specific learning disability is neurological in origin and has a continuum of severity

Can be evidenced through either 

• Insufficient progress to meet age or state approved grade level standards in one or more areas (reading, math, written expression) when using a process on the student response to scientific, research based intervention

• A pattern of strengths and weaknesses in performance or achievement or both relative to age, state approved grade level standards or intellectual development

Does not include learning problems that are primarily the result of the following

• Visual, hearing or motor disability

• Cognitive Disability

• Emotional Disability

• Cultural Factors

• Environmental or economic disadvantage

• Limited English Proficiency

Lack of appropriate instruction in reading or math as evidence by

• Data demonstrating that the student was provided appropriate instruction in general education setting delivered by qualified personnel

• Data based documentation of repeated assessment of achievement at reasonable intervals, reflecting formal assessment of student progress during instruction which was provided to the student’s parents

 is an acquired injury to the brain caused by an external physical force, resulting in or partial functional disability or psychosocial impairment, or both, that adversely affects a student’s educational performance. Term applies to open or closed head injuries resulting in impairments in one or more of the following: cognition, language, memory, attention, reasoning, abstract thinking, judgment, problem solving, sensory, perceptual, and motor abilities, psychosocial behavior, physical functions, information processing and speech.

TBI does not include congenital or degenerative or induced by birth trauma