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East Valley School District No.90

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Special Education » Areas of Disabilities

Areas of Disabilities

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Disabilities Eligible for Services in East Valley School District
1.  Autism - means a developmental disability, which significantly affects verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, generally evident before age three (3), that adversely affects a child's education 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 this section.  After age three (3), a child could be diagnosed as having autism if the child manifests the above characteristics.  The term of autism may also include students who have been diagnosed with an Autism Disorder such as Autism, Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS) or Asperger's Syndrome when the child's educational performance is adversely affected.  Additionally, it may also include a diagnosis of Pervasive Developmental Disorder such as Rett's or Childhood Dis-Integrative Disorder.  Autism may exist concurrently with other areas of disability. 
 
2.  Deaf-Blindness - means concomitant hearing and visual impairments the combination of which causes such severe communication and other developmental and educational needs that cannot be accommodated by addressing any one of the impairments. 
 
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. 
 
4.  Developmental Delay - means a child ages three (3) to nine (9) who is experiencing developmental delays as measured by appropriate diagnostic instruments and procedures in one or more of the following areas:  physical, cognitive, communication development, social or emotional, or adaptive development and who demonstrates a delay on a standardized norm referenced test, with a test-retest or split-half reliability of .80 that is at least:
  1. Two standard deviations below the mean in ore or more of the five developmental areas; or
  2. One and one-half standard deviations below the mean in two or more of the five developmental areas. 
  1. The five developmental areas for students with a developmental delay are:
    1. Cognitive development:  Comprehending, remembering, and making sense out of one's experience.  Cognitive ability is the ability to think and is often thought of in terms of intelligence;
    2. Communication development:  The ability to effectively use or understand age-appropriate language, including vocabulary, grammar, and speech sounds;
    3. Physical development:  Fine and/or gross motor skills requiring precise, coordinated, use of small muscle and/or motor skills used for body control such as standing, walking, balance, and climbing;
    4. Social or emotional development:  The ability to develop and maintain functional interpersonal relationships and to exhibit age appropriate social and emotional behaviors; and
    5. Adaptive development:  The ability to develop and exhibit age-appropriate self-help skills, including independent feeding, toileting, personal hygiene and dressing skills. 
  2. Students who qualify under the developmental delay eligibility category must be reevaluated before the age of ten (10) and determined eligible for services under one of he other eligibility categories.
Other disability categories should be used if they are more descriptive of a young child's strengths and needs. 
 
5.  Emotional/behavioral Disability - means a condition where the student exhibits one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of tame and to a marked degree that adversely affects a student'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.
  5. A tendency to develop physical symptoms of fears associated with personal or school problems.
6.  Hearing Impairment - means an impairment in hearing, whether permanent of fluctuating, that adversely affects a student's educational performance but that is not included under the definition of deafness.
 
7.  Intellectual Disability - means significantly sub-average general intellectual functioning, existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period, that adversely affects a student's educational performance. 
 
8.  Multiple Disabilities -  means concomitant impairments, 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 multiple disabilities does not deaf-blindness. 
 
9.  Orthopedic Impairment - means a severe orthopedic  impairment that adversely affects a student's educational performance.  The term includes impairments caused by a congenital anomaly, impairments caused by disease (e.g., poliomyelitis, bone tuberculosis), and impairments form other causes (e.g., cerebral palsy, amputations, and fractures or burns that cause contractures). 
 
10.  Other Health Impairments - 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:
  1. 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, sickle cell anemia, and Tourette syndrome; and
  2. Adversely affects a student's educational performance.
11.  Specific Learning Disability - means 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 the imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations, including conditions such as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia, that adversely affects a student's educational performance. 
  1. Specific learning disability does not include learning problems that are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities, of intellectual disability, of emotional disturbance, or environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantages. 
12.  Communication Disorders - means a communication disorder, such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment, or a voice impairment, that adversely affects a student's educational performance.
 
13.  Traumatic Brain Injury - means an acquired injury to the brain caused by an external physical force, resulting in total or partial functional disability or psycho-social impairment, or both, that adversely affects a student's educational performance.  Traumatic brain injury applies to open or closed head injuries resulting in impairments in ore or more areas, such as cognition; language; memory; attention; reasoning; abstract thinking; judgment; problem solving; sensory, perceptual, and motor abilities; psycho-social behavior; physical functions; information processing; and speech.  Traumatic brain injury does not apply to brain injuries that are congenital or degenerative, or to brain injuries induced by birth trauma.
 
14.  Visual Impairments (including blindness) - means an impairment in vision that, even with correction, adversely affects a student's educational performance.  The term includes both partial sight and blindness.