What are the various categories of special
education?
This varies a bit from State to State,
but the Federal guidelines (which all States must follow) identify
the following categories:
You can find out how your State interprets
these guideline by contacting your local public school special
education department.
Federal Categories of Special
Education
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(1) Autism
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(i) Autism means a developmental
disability significantly affecting 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 an emotional disturbance, as defined
in paragraph (b)(4) of this section.
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(3) Deafness means a
hearing impairment that is so severe that the child is impaired
in processing linguistic information through hearing, with or
without amplification, that adversely affects a child's
educational performance.
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(5) Hearing impairment means
an impairment in hearing, whether permanent or fluctuating,
that adversely affects a child's educational performance but
that is not included under the definition of deafness in this
section.
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(6) Mental retardation means
significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning,
existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and
manifested during the developmental period, that adversely
affects a child's educational performance.
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(7) Multiple disabilities
means concomitant impairments (such as mental
retardation-blindness, mental retardation-orthopedic
impairment, etc.), the combination of which causes such severe
educational needs that they cannot be accommodated in special
education programs solely for one of the impairments. The term
does not include deaf-blindness.
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(8) Orthopedic impairment
means a severe orthopedic impairment that adversely affects a
child's educational performance. The term includes impairments
caused by congenital anomaly (e.g., clubfoot, absence of some
member, etc.), impairments caused by disease (e.g.,
poliomyelitis, bone tuberculosis, etc.), and impairments from
other causes (e.g., cerebral palsy, amputations, and fractures
or burns that cause contractures).
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(9) Other health impairment
means having limited strength, vitality or alertness, including
a heightened alertness to environmental stimuli, that results
in limited alertness with respect to the educational
environment, that
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(i) Is due to chronic or acute health
problems such as asthma, attention deficit disorder or
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, diabetes,
epilepsy, a heart condition, hemophilia, lead poisoning,
leukemia, nephritis, rheumatic fever, and sickle cell
anemia; and
(ii) Adversely affects a child's
educational performance.
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(11) Speech or language
impairment means a communication disorder, such as stuttering,
impaired articulation, a language impairment, or a voice
impairment, that adversely affects a child's educational
performance.
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(12) Traumatic brain injury
means an acquired injury to the brain caused by an external
physical force, resulting in total or partial functional
disability 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 to brain injuries induced by
birth trauma.
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(13) Visual impairment
including blindness means an impairment in vision that, even
with correction, adversely affects a child's educational
performance. The term includes both partial sight and
blindness.
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Return to the LDinfo Web Site to find out about any of the following topics (and more):
Learning disabilities - what
is a learning disability (LD or SLD)?
Dyslexia: Dyslexia is a reading
disability or reading disorder
Dysgraphia Dysgraphia is a writing
disability or disorder
Dyscalculia Dyscalculia is a math
disability or disorder
What is an attention deficit disorder (ADD,
AD/HD, ADHD)?
Gifted LD: Can a student be gifted and
LD?
Emotional/Behavioral issues
and LD: Do LD students experience behavior problems or
depression?
Section 504: What is a Section 504
plan?
What is special
education?
What is processing?
What is a severe
discrepancy?
What is a nonverbal learning
disability (nonverbal LD or NLD)?
What is a central auditory
processing disorder (CAPD)?
What is IDEA? |
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