Determining

Different types of disabilities

• Autism, Deaf-Blindness, Developmental Delay, Emotional Disturbance, Hearing Impairments, Learning Disabilities Intellectual, Disabilities Multiple Disabilities, Orthopedic Impairments, Other Health Impairments Speech and Language Impairments Traumatic Brain Injury Visual Impairment

Eligibility Criteria

• According to the U.S. Department of Education’s latest data on students in special education, more than 6 million U.S. children between 6 and 21 years of age receive special education services.

Autism

• The student is unable to use expressive and receptive language for social communication in a developmentally appropriate manner.
• The student exhibits deficits relating to people, marked lack of awareness of other’s feel- ings, abnormal seeking of comfort at times of distress, absent or abnormal social play, and/or inability to make friends.
• The student exhibits unusual, repetitive, nonmeaningful responses to auditory, visual, olfactory, taste, tactile, and/or kinesthetic stimuli.
• The student has difficulty with concrete versus abstract thinking, awareness, judgment, and/or the ability to generalize.
• The student shows a restricted repertoire of activities, interests, and imaginative development evident through stereotyped body movements.
• A licensed clinical psychologist, psychiatrist, clinical neuropsychologist, specially trained neurologists, developmental pediatrician,
• The Eligibility Committee uses multiple sources of information to determine that educational performance is adversely affected and is not primarily due to an emotional disability.

Deaf–Blindness:

• the student meets the eligibility criteria for special education as a student with vision impairment and as a student with a hearing impairment.
• the student meets eligibility criteria for either a hearing or vision impairment,
• The student needs special education services.

Emotional Disturbance:

• 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 behaviors or feelings under normal circumstances
• A general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression
• A tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems

Hearing Impairment:

• The student has a pure tone average loss of 25 dbHL or greater in the better ear for frequencies of 500 Hz, 1000 Hz, and 2000 Hz, or a pure tone average loss of 35 dbHL or greater in the better ear for frequencies of 3000 Hz, 4000 Hz, and 6000 Hz;
• The student has a unilateral hearing impairment with a pure tone average loss of 50 dbHL or greater in the affected ear for the frequencies 500 Hz to 4000 Hz;
• The loss is either sensorineural or conductive if the conductive loss has been deter- mined to be currently untreatable by a physician.
• Educational performance when the student is at the age of eligibility for kindergar- ten through age 21,
• Developmental progress when the student is age 3 through the age of eligibility for kindergarten;

Intellectual Disability:

• limited English proficiency
• cultural background and differences;
• medical conditions that impact school performance;
• socioeconomic status;
• communication, sensory, or motor disabilities.

Learning Disability

• Must not require the use of a severe discrepancy between intellectual ability and achievement for determining whether a child has a specific learning disability, as defined under IDEIA;
• Must permit the use of a process based on the child’s response to scientific, re- search-based intervention;
• May permit the use of other alternative research-based procedures for determin- ing whether a child has a specific learning disability

Multiple Disabilities

• Meet the standards for two or more identified disabilities;
• Be unable to benefit from services and supports designed for only one of the disabilities, as determined to be primary or secondary disabilities by the Eligibility Committee.
• The student has a combination of two or more disabilities;
• The nature of the combination of disabilities require significant developmental and educational programming that cannot be accommodated with special education services that primarily serve one area of the disability.
• The adverse effects are from a lack of instruction in reading or math that is not related to the traumatic brain injury.
• The adverse effects are from environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage as a result of such factors as: Second language, limited English proficiency, other cultural values and experiences and experiential differences.
• The adverse effects are judged to result from absenteeism (unrelated to health) or change in residence or schools.
• The disability is more accurately described by another category of eligibility.
• The student does not meet the eligibility criteria for “Deaf-Blind.”

Health Impairment

• Impairments caused by congenital anomaly.
• Impairments caused by disease
• Impairments from other causes
• A lack of meaningful and productive participation;
• Reduced efficiency in school work;
• Inability to access educational environment despite environmental modifications.

Speech and Language Impairment:

• Fluency disorder means the intrusion or repetition of sounds, syllables, and words; prolongations of sounds; avoidance of words; silent blocks; or inappropriate inhala- tion, exhalation, or phonation patterns. These patterns may also be accompanied by facial and body movements associated with the effort to speak.
• Voice disorder means the absence of voice or presence of abnormal quality, pitch, resonance, loudness, or duration.
• Articulation disorder means the absence of or incorrect production of speech sounds or phonological processes that are developmentally appropriate (e.g., lisp, difficulty articulating certain sounds, such as l or r).
• Language disorder means a breakdown in communication as characterized by prob- lems in expressing needs, ideas, or information that may be accompanied by problems in understanding.

Traumatic Brain Injury:

• The Eligibility Committee must first assure that there is medical documentation of the traumatic brain injury completed by a physician, and kept in the student’s school file. The team must then verify that there is a functional impairment attributable to the TBI that adversely affects the student’s educational performance in one or more listed areas. This is determined through a comprehensive special education evaluation.
• The team must have documentation by a physician or a health assessment statement that the student has an acquired injury to the brain caused by an external physical force. A key factor to consider when determining whether a student may be eligi- ble for special education support under the category of TBI is the type of acquired brain injury. There must be medical documentation stating that the student’s brain has been injured by an ‘external force.’ Students who have an acquired nontrau- matic brain injury as a result of infection, cerebral vascular accidents, brain tumors,

Visual Impairment:

• The team should review all existing information, including information from the parent/guardian(s), the student’s cumulative records, and any previous individualized education programs or individualized family service plans. Evaluation documentation includes relevant information from these sources used in the eligibility determination.
• The team should review all of the assessments done by the Multidisciplinary Team to determine the impact of the disability.
• The team should then determine whether any additional assessments are necessary to identify the student’s educational needs, including a functional assessment of the student’s residual visual acuity or field of vision.
• Upon successful completion of the above, the team must then show that the student meets one of the following criteria
• The team must also determine that the student needs special education services.
• The team agrees that this student qualifies for special education.

Reflection

• Learning all of these different disabilities will definitely help me in my future profession as well as my job right now. I work for a special recreation and we have a lot of different disabilities that we serve.