Disability Categories

 Throughout the evaluation process, Blaine County School District works hard to identify disabilities.  School professionals, such as school psychologists, use a wide variety of evaluative instruments to assist in this process.  School professionals are able to identify many disabilities.  However, some disabilities (such as medical conditions) may need to be diagnosed by a licensed professional or doctor.  If an evaluation team suspects that a student has an undiagnosed medical condition, “screening” tools may be used to gather more information.  Families may take the results of these “screeners” to outside agencies/medical professionals for further evaluation and/or a possible diagnosis.

The Individuals with Disabilities Act and the Idaho State Department of Education  mandate that all students within special education have an identified disability.  A summary of qualifying disabilities can be found below:

Autism: A developmental disability, generally evident before age 3, significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, and adversely affecting educational performance. A student who manifests the characteristics of autism after age 3 could be diagnosed as having autism. Other characteristics often associated with autism include, but are not limited to, engagement in repetitive activities and stereotyped movements, resistance to environmental change or change in daily routines, and unusual responses to sensory experiences. Characteristics vary from mild to severe as well as in the number of symptoms present. Diagnoses may include, but are not limited to, the following autism spectrum disorders: Childhood Disintegrative Disorder, Autistic Disorder, Asperger’s Syndrome, or Pervasive Developmental Disorder: Not Otherwise Specified (PDD:NOS).

Cognitive Impairment: Defined as significantly sub-average intellectual functioning that exists concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior. These deficits are manifested during the student’s developmental period and adversely affect the student’s educational performance.

Deaf-Blindness: A student with deaf-blindness demonstrates both hearing and visual impairments, the combination of which causes such severe communication and other developmental and educational needs that the student cannot be appropriately educated with special education services designed solely for students with deafness or blindness.

Deafness: A hearing impairment that adversely affects educational performance and is so severe that with or without amplification the student is limited in processing linguistic information through hearing.

Developmental Delay: The term developmental delay may be used only for students ages 3 through 9 who are experiencing developmental delays as measured by appropriate diagnostic instruments and procedures in one or more of the following areas:

1.     Cognitive development – includes skills involving perceptual discrimination, memory, reasoning, academic skills, and conceptual development;

2.     Physical development – includes skills involving coordination of both the large and small muscles of the body (i.e., gross, fine, and perceptual motor skills);

3.     Communication development – includes skills involving expressive and receptive communication abilities, both verbal and nonverbal;

4.     Social or emotional development – includes skills involving meaningful social interactions with adults and other children including self-expression and coping skills;

5.     Adaptive development – includes daily living skills (e.g., eating, dressing, and toileting) as well as skills involving attention and personal responsibility.

The category of developmental delay should not be used when the student clearly meets the eligibility criteria for another specific disability category.

A student cannot qualify for special education services under developmental delay beyond his or her 10th birthday unless he or she has been determined to be eligible as having a disability other than developmental delay.

Emotional Disturbance: A condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time, and to a marked degree, that adversely affects his or her educational performance:

·      An inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors;

·      An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers;

·      Inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances;

·      A general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression; or

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

The term does not include students who are socially maladjusted unless it is determined they have an emotional disturbance. The term emotional disturbance does include students who are diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Health Impairment: Classified as having a health impairment exhibits limited strength, vitality, or alertness, including 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. These health problems may include, but are not limited to, asthma, attention deficit disorder (ADD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), cancer, diabetes, epilepsy, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, a heart condition, hemophilia, lead poisoning, leukemia, nephritis, rheumatic fever, sickle cell anemia, Tourette syndrome, and stroke to such a degree that it adversely affects the student’s educational performance.

A student with ADD/ADHD may also be eligible under another category (generally learning disability or emotional disturbance) if he or she meets the criteria for that other category and needs special education and related services. All students with a diagnosis of ADD/ADHD are not necessarily eligible to receive special education under the IDEA 2004, just as all students who have one of the other conditions listed under health impairment are not necessarily eligible, unless it is determined to adversely affect educational performance and require special education.

Hearing Impairment: A permanent or fluctuating hearing loss that adversely affects a student’s educational performance but is not included under the category of deafness.

Specific Learning Disability:  A disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, that may manifest itself in the imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations, including conditions such as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia.

Specific Learning Disability does not include learning problems that are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities, of cognitive impairment, of emotional disturbance, or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.

Only children within the age range of legal Kindergarten to age 21 years may be identified as a student with a specific learning disability.

In determining whether a child has an SLD, the child must meet at a minimum, the following criteria:

1. The student does not make sufficient progress in response to effective, evidence based instruction and intervention for the child’s age or to meet state-approved grade level standards in one or more of the following areas:

• Oral Expression

• Listening Comprehension

• Written Expression

• Basic Reading Skills

• Reading Comprehension

• Reading Fluency

• Mathematics Calculation or

• Mathematics Problem Solving

2. The student demonstrates low achievement in the area(s) of suspected disability listed above as evidenced by a norm-referenced, standardized achievement assessment. For culturally and linguistically diverse students, the preponderance of evidence must indicate low achievement.

         AND

3. The student demonstrates a pattern of strengths and weaknesses in psychological processing skills that impact learning.

4. The student’s lack of achievement is not primarily the result of:

• A visual, hearing, or motor impairment;

• Cognitive impairment

• Emotional disturbance

• Environmental, cultural or economic disadvantage

• Limited English Proficiency

• A lack of appropriate instruction in reading, including the essential components of reading;

• A lack of appropriate instruction in math.

         AND

5. The disability adversely impacts the student’s educational performance and the  student requires specially designed instruction.

Multiple Disabilities: Two or more co-existing severe impairments, one of which usually includes a cognitive impairment, such as cognitive impairment/blindness, cognitive impairment/orthopedic, etc. Students with multiple disabilities exhibit impairments that are likely to be life long, significantly interfere with independent functioning, and may necessitate environmental modifications to enable the student to participate in school and society. The term does not include deaf-blindness.

Orthopedic Impairment: A severe physical limitation that adversely affects a student’s educational performance. The term includes impairments caused by congenital anomaly (clubfoot, or absence of an appendage), an impairment caused by disease (poliomyelitis, bone tuberculosis, etc.), or an impairment from other causes (cerebral palsy, amputations, and fractures or burns that cause contracture).

Speech or Language Impairment: Language: A disorder or delay in the development of comprehension and/or the uses of spoken or written language and/or other symbol systems. The impairment may involve any one or a combination of the following:

1.       The form of language (morphological and syntactic systems);

2.       The content of language (semantic systems); and/or

3.       The function of language in communication (pragmatic systems).

A language disorder does not exist when language differences are due to non-standard English or regional dialect or when the evaluator cannot rule out environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage as primary factors causing the impairment.

Speech or Language Impairment: Speech

The term speech impairment includes articulation/phonology disorders, voice disorders, or fluency disorders that adversely impact a child’s educational performance. The following eligibility criteria and minimum assessment procedures have been established for all three types of speech impairments.

1.     Articulation/Phonology Disorder: Articulation is the ability to speak distinctly and connectedly. Articulation disorders are incorrect productions of speech sounds including omissions, distortions, substitutions, and/or additions that may interfere with intelligibility. Phonology is the process used in our language that has common elements (sound patterns) that affect different sounds. Phonology disorders are errors involving phonemes, sound patterns, and the rules governing their combinations.

A.     An articulation/phonology disorder exists when:

·      The disorder is exhibited by omissions, distortions, substitutions, or additions;

·      The articulation interferes with communication and calls attention to itself; and

·      The disorder adversely affects educational or developmental performance.

B.     An articulation/phonology disorder does not exist when:

·      Errors are temporary in nature or are due to temporary conditions such as dental changes;

·      Differences are due to culture, bilingualism or dialect, or from being non-English speaking; or

·      There are delays in developing the ability to articulate only the most difficult blends of sound or consonants within the broad range for the student’s age.

2.     Fluency Disorder: A fluency disorder consists of stoppages in the flow of speech that is abnormally frequent and/or abnormally long. The stoppages usually take the form of repetitions of sounds, syllables, or single syllable words; prolongations of sounds; or blockages of airflow and/or voicing in speech.

A.   A fluency disorder exists when an abnormal rate of speaking, speech, interruptions, repetitions, prolongations, blockages of airflow and/or voicing interferes with effective communication.

B.    A fluency disorder does not exist when developmental dysfluencies are part of normal speech development and do not interfere with educational or developmental performance.

3.     Voice Disorder: Voice disorders are the absence or abnormal production of voice quality, pitch, intensity, or resonance. Voice disorders may be the result of a functional or an organic condition. A student who has a suspected laryngeal-based voice disorder and has not been evaluated by an ear, nose, and throat physician (ENT) (otorhinolaryngologist) may not receive voice therapy services from a speech-language pathologist.

A.    A voice disorder exists when the vocal characteristics of quality, pitch, intensity, or resonance:

·      Interfere with communication;

·      Draw unfavorable attention to the speaker;

·      Adversely affect the speaker or listener; or

·      Are inappropriate to the age and gender of the speaker.

B.    A voice disorder does not exist when the vocal characteristics of quality, pitch, intensity, or resonance:

·      Are the result of temporary physical factors such as allergies, colds, or abnormal tonsils or adenoids;

·      Are the result of regional dialectic or cultural differences or economic disadvantage

·      Do not interfere with educational or developmental performance.

Traumatic Brain Injury: An acquired injury to the brain caused by an external physical force resulting in a total or partial functional disability or psychosocial impairment, or both, that adversely affects 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 apply to congenital or degenerative brain injuries or to brain injuries induced by birth trauma.

Visual Impairment Including Blindness: An impairment in vision that, even with correction, adversely affects a student’s educational performance. The term includes both partial sight and blindness. Partial sight refers to the ability to use vision as one channel of learning if educational materials are adapted. Blindness refers to the prohibition of vision as a channel of learning, regardless of the adaptation of materials.