DEFINITIONS OF DISABILITIES [3.

5(c)1-13]
“Auditorily impaired” = inability to hear within normal limits due to physical impairment
or dysfunction of auditory mechanisms that results in deafness (student is impaired in
processing linguistic information through hearing, with or without amplification) or hearing
impairment (permanent or fluctuating impairment); audiological evaluation by a specialist
qualified in audiology and a speech and language evaluation by certified speech-language
specialist required

“Autistic” = pervasive developmental disability which significantly impacts verbal and

nonverbal communication and social interaction; onset is generally before age 3; some
characteristics include repetitive activities, stereotyped movements, resistance to
environmental change or change in daily routine, unusual responses to sensory experiences
and lack of responsiveness to others; assessment by certified speech-language specialist and
by a physician trained in neurodevelopmental assessment required

“Cognitively impaired” = below average general cognitive functioning existing concurrently

with deficits in adaptive behavior, manifested during the developmental period; “mild” means
mildly below age expectations in quality and rate of learning, use of symbols for
interpretation of information and solution of problems, performance on intelligence test two-
three standard deviations below the norm; “moderate” means cognitive development and
adaptive behavior moderately below age expectations in ability to use symbols in solving
problems of low complexity, the ability to function socially without direct and close
supervision in home, school and community, and performance on intelligence test 3 or more
standard deviations below norm; “severe” means functioning severely below age
expectations, consistently incapable of giving evidence of understanding and responding in a
positive manner to simple directions expressed in the child’s primary mode of
communication, and unable to express basic wants and needs

“Communication impaired” means a language disorder in the areas of morphology, syntax,

semantics and/or pragnatics/discourse, not due primarily to an auditory impairment; problem
is demonstrated through functional assessment of language in other than a testing situation
and performance below 1.5 standard deviations, or thte 10th % on at least two standardized
oral language tesets; an evaluation by certified speech-language specialist is required; if the
student requires only speech-language instruction, the student is classified as eligible for
speech-language services; when there is a disorder of articulation, voice, or fluency, the
student is also classified as eligible for speech-language services

“Emotionally disturbed” means exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over
a long period of time and to a marked degree, adversely affecting educational performance
due to an inability to learn that can’t be explained by intellectual, sensory or health factors; an
inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers or teachers,
inappropriate types of behaviors or feelings under normal circumstances, a general pervasive
mood of unhappiness or depress, a tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears
associated with personal or school problems

“Multiply disabled” means the presence of two or more disabling conditions (excluding
speech-language), the combination of which causes problems that can’t be addressed by
programs designed for the individual disabling conditions; “Deaf-blindness” means the
presence of hearing and visual impairments that cause such severe communication and other
problems that they can’t be addressed in programs solely for students with deafness or with
blindness

“Orthopedically impaired” means a disability characterized by a severe orthopedic

impairment, including malfunction or loss of bones, muscle or tissue; a medical assessment is
required

“Other health impaired” means a disability that may be characterized by 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, diabetes or any other medical condition, including Tourette’s
Syndrome, that adversely affects educational performance; a medical assessment is required

“Preschool disabled” means an identifiable disability and/or a measurable developmental

impairment occurring between the ages of 3-5 and requiring special education and related
services

“Social maladjustment” means a consistent inability to conform to the standards for

behavior established by the school; the behavior is seriously disruptive to the education of the
student or other students and is not due to emotional disturbance

“Specific learning disability” means a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological
processes involved in understanding or using language, spoken or written, that may manifest
itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do math calculations;
characterized by a severe discrepancy between the student’s current achievement and
intellectual ability in (1) basic reading skills, (2) reading comprehensive, (3) oral expression,
(4) listening comprehensive, (5) math computation, (6) math reasoning, and/or (7) written
expression; does not apply to students with learning problems that are primarily the result of
visual, hearing or motor disabilities, general cognitive deficits, emotional disturbance, or
environment, cultural or economic disadvantage; each district must adopt procedures that use
a statistical formula and criteria to determine “severe discrepancy”; assessment must include
current academic achievement and intellectual ability

“Traumatic brain injury” means an acquired injury to the brain caused by an external
physical force or insult to the brain, resulting in total or partial functional disability or
psychosocial impairment, or both; applies to open or closed head injuries resulting in
impairments to areas such as cognition, language, memory, attention, reasoning, abstract
thinking, judgment, problem-solving, sensory, perceptual and motor abilities, psychosocial
behavior, physical functions, information processing, speech

“Visual impairment” means an impairment in vision that, even with correction, adversely
affects educational performance; includes partial sight and blindness; assessment by specialist
qualified to determine visual disability is required; students must be reported to the
Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired

“Eligible for speech-language” means a speech disorder in articulation, phonology, fluency,

voices or any combination, unrelated to dialect, cultural differences or influence of foreign
language, or a language disorder requiring only speech-language services; for articulation/
phonology, the student exhibits one or more sound production error patterns beyond the age
at which 90% of the population has achieved mastery according to current developmental
norms and misarticulates sounds consistently in a speech sample; for fluency, the student
demonstrates at least a mild rating on a formal fluency rating scale and in a speech sample,
the student exhibits disfluency in 5% or more of the words spoken; for voice, the student
performs below the normal level for voice quality, pitch, resonance, loudness or duration and
the condition is evident on two separate occasions, three to four weeks apart, at different
times [3.6]