Disability Specific Information
IDEA includes 13 primary terms under the main definition of “a child with a disability.” These federal definitions guide how states define who is eligible for a free appropriate public education under special education law.
Disability Conditions and Eligibility Definitions: https://childfindtx.tea.texas.gov/eval-disability-criteria.html
NICHCY offers a wealth of information on disabilities. They serve the nation as a central source of information on disabilities in infants, toddlers, children, and youth. Here you will also find easy-to-read information on IDEA, the law authorizing early intervention services and special education. The state resource sheets will help you connect with the disability agencies and organizations in your state. See attached file below.
Deaf or Hard of Hearing
A student that has been determined to have a hearing impairment so severe that a child is impaired in processing linguistic information through hearing, without amplification, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.
Autism
A student with evidences the criteria for autism as stated in 34 CFR, §300.7(b)(1) including significantly affected verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, generally evident before age 3, that adversely affects a child’s 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 apply if a child’s educational performance is adversely affected primarily because the child has a serious emotional disturbance.
Deaf-Blind
A student who has a combination of severe hearing and visual impairments, the combination of which causes such server communication and other developmental and educational needs that they cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for children with deafness or children with blindness.
Emotional Disturbance
A student exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree that adversely affects a child’s performance:
• An inability to learn which 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
• A tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems.
• 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
• A tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems.
The term includes schizophrenia. The term does not apply to children who are socially maladjusted,
unless it is determined that they have an emotional disturbance.
unless it is determined that they have an emotional disturbance.
Intellectual Disability
A student who exhibits significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning, existing concurrently (at the same time) with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.
Multiple Disabilities
A student with multiple disabilities is one who has a combination of disabilities included in this section and who meets all of the following conditions:
The student’s disability is expected to continue indefinitely. The disabilities severely impaired performance in two or more of the following areas:
- psycho-motor skills
- self-care skills
- communication
- social and emotional development
- cognition
Students who have more than one of the disabilities defined in this section but who do not meet the criteria in paragraph one of this subsection shall not be classified or reported as having multiple disabilities.
Noncategorical Early Childhood (Developmental Delay)
A student age 3-5 experiencing developmental delays as defined by the State and as measured by appropriate diagnostic instruments and procedures, in one or more of the following areas and who needs special education and related services.
- physical development
- cognitive development
- communication development
- social or emotional development
- adaptive development
Orthopedic Impairment
A student who has been determined by a licensed physician to have a severe orthopedic impairment that adversely affects a child’s educational performance including impairments caused by congenital anomaly (e.g. poliomyelitis, bone tuberculosis, etc.) and impairments from other causes (e.g., cerebral palsy, amputations, fractures, burns etc. that cause contractures).
Other Health Impairment
A student who has been determined by a licensed physician to have limited strength, vitality or alertness, due to chronic or acute health problems such as a heart condition, tuberculosis, rheumatic fever, nephritis, asthma, sickle cell anemia, hemophilia, epilepsy, lead poisoning, leukemia, or diabetes that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.
Specific Learning Disability
A student with 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 an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations. The term includes such conditions as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. The term does not include learning problems that are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities; of mental retardation; of emotional disturbance; or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.
Speech and Language Impairment
A student who has been determined by a certified speech and hearing therapist, certified speech and language therapist, or licensed speech language pathologist to meet the criteria as defined in 34 CFR, §300.7(b)(11) as having a disorder such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment, or a voice impairment that adversely affects the child’s educational performance.
Traumatic Brain Injury
A student with traumatic brain injury is one who has been determined by a licensed physician to have an injury to the brain caused by an external physical force resulting in total or partial functional disability and/or psychosocial impairment or both, that adversely affects a child’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 apply to brain injuries that are congenital or degenerative, or brain injuries induced by
birth trauma.
birth trauma.
Visual Impairment
A student who has a visual impairment is one who has an impairment in vision that, even with correction, adversely affects a child’s educational performance. The term includes both partial sight and blindness.