Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder – Autism – Deaf-Blindness – Emotional Disturbance – Intellectual Disability – Hearing Impairment – Multiple Disabilities – Orthopedic Impairment – Preschool Children with a Disability – Speech or Language Impairment – Specific Learning Disability – Traumatic Brain Injury – Visual Impairment including Blindness
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
ADHD affects and individual’s ability to sustain and control age-appropriate attention, impulsiveness, and activity level. The cause of ADHD is often genetic. It can also be due to environmental factors. ADHD children have difficulty regulating their own behavior or organizing and processing the information they are given. ADHD is now the clinical term for both ADD and ADHD. The “H” being evidence of hyperactive behavior.
Autism (AU)
A developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication, generally evident before the age of three, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance. Other characteristics often associated with autism are engaging in repetitive activities and stereotyped movements, resistance to environmental change or change in daily routines, and unusual responses to sensory experiences.
Deaf-Blindness (DB)
Concomitant hearing and visual impairments, the combination of which causes such severe communication and other developmental and educational problems that they cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for children with deafness or children with blindness.
Emotional Disturbance (was Serious Emotional Disturbance) (ED, was SED)
A condition 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 educational performance: 1) an inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors; 2) An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers; 3) Inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances; 4) a general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression; or 5) a tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems.
Intellectual Disability (ID)
Significantly sub-average general intellectual functioning, existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.
Hearing Impairment (HI)
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.
Multiple Disabilities (was Multiple Handicap) (MD, was MH)
Multiple impairments (such as mental retardation-blindness, mental retardation-orthopedic impairment, etc.) the combination of which causes such severe educational problems that they cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for one of the impairments. the term does not include deaf-blindness.
Orthopedic Impairment (OI)
A severe orthopedic impairment that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.
Preschool Children with a Disability (P/D)
Children who are 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: physical development, cognitive development, communication development, social or emotional development or adaptive development.
Speech or Language Impairment (SLI, was SH)
A communication disorder such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment or a voice impairment that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.
Specific Learning Disability (SLD)
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.
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
An acquired injury to the brain caused by external physical force, resulting in total or partial functional disability or psychosocial impairment or both that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.
Visual Impairment including Blindness (VI)
An impairment in vision determined through an eye examination, including assessment of low vision, by an appropriate visual specialist, that has adverse effect upon the child’s educational performance.