Eligibility

DETERMINING WHICH CHILDREN ARE ELIGIBLE FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION SERVICES

After evaluation, the individual education program team is responsible for determining the eligibility of a child for special education and related services. Parents have the right to participate in this important meeting. The following definitions describe which areas of special needs/disabilities may qualify a child for special education services. The results and conclusions of your child's evaluation are compared to these definitions. If the results correspond with one or more disability definitions and if, due to this disability your child requires special education and related services, your child will be eligible for these services.

Definitions of categories for which students may be eligible for special education services:

Developmental Disability
A child (ages 3-6) who is experiencing developmental delays 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 and who needs special education and related services.

Autism
A developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, generally evident before age three, that adversely affects a child's educational performance.

Deaf-Blind
Concomitant hearing and visual impairments, the combination of which causes such severe communication and other developmental and educational needs that they cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for children who are deaf or children who are blind.

Deaf
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.

Emotional Disturbance
A condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree, which adversely affects educational performance:
a) an inability to learn which cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory or health factors;
b) an inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers;
c) inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances;
d) a general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression; or
e) a tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems.

Hearing Impairment
A measurable hearing impairment which, with or without amplification, impairs linguistic processing and adversely affects educational performance.

Intellectually Disabled
Significant subaverage general intellectual functioning existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior, and manifested during the developmental period, which adversely affects a child's educational performance.

Multiple disabilities
A combination of identifiable disabilities, the combination of which causes such severe educational needs that they cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for one of the disabilities but does not include students who are deaf-blind.

Orthopedic Impairment
A severe orthopedic impairment that adversely affects the child's educational performance. The term includes impairments caused by congenital anomaly, impairments caused by disease, and impairments from other causes, but does not include a temporary condition which is anticipated to be of less than three weeks duration.

Other Health Impaired
Limited strength, vitality, or alertness, including a heightened alertness to environmental stimuli, that results in limited alertness with respect to the educational environment that is due t o chronic or acute health problems, which is anticipated to be of more than three weeks duration.

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 an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, written, spell or do mathematical calculations. The term shall not include children who have learning problems which are primarily the result of hearing, visual, or physical disabilities, or mental retardation.

Speech and/or Language Impaired
A communication disorder such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment, or a voice impairment that adversely affects a child's educational performance.

Traumatic Brain Injury
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

Visual Impairment
A measurable visual impairment which, even after correction, continues to adversely affect the child's educational performance. The term shall include both partially sighted and blind children.