Disability Codes

(01) Intellectual Disability - 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.

(02) Hearing Impairment - 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.

(03) 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.

(04) Speech or Language Impairment - A communication disorder, such as stuttering, impaired articulation, language impairment or a voice impairment that adversely affects a child's educational performance.

(05) Visual Impairment - An impairment in vision that, even with correction, adversely affects a child's performance. The term includes both partial sight and blindness.

(06) Emotional Disability - 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 feeling 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.
6. Includes schizophrenia.
7. Does not apply to children who are socially maladjusted, unless it is determined that they have emotional disturbance.

(07) Orthopedic Impairment - A severe orthopedic impairment that adversely affects a child's educational performance. Includes impairments caused by:

• Congenital anomaly (e.g., club foot, absence of some member, etc.)
• Impairments caused by disease (e.g., poliomyelitis, bone tuberculosis, etc.)
• Impairments from other causes (e.g., cerebral palsy, amputations, and fractures or burns that cause contractures.)

(08) Other Health Impairment - Having limited strength, vitality or alertness, including a heightened alertness to environmental stimuli, that results in limited alertness with respect to the educational environment, due to chronic or acute health problems, such as:

• Heart condition
• Tuberculosis
• Rheumatic fever
• Nephritis
• Asthma
• Attention deficit disorder
• Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
• Sickle cell anemia
• Hemophilia
• Epilepsy
• Lead poisoning
• Leukemia
• Diabetes

And adversely affects a child's educational performance.

(09) 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, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations.

The term includes conditions such as:

• perceptual disabilities
• brain injury
• minimal brain dysfunction
• dyslexia
• developmental aphasia

The term does not include learning problems that are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities, or mental retardation, or emotional disturbance, or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.

(10) Multiple Disabilities - 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.

(11) Deaf-Blindness - 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 with deafness or children with blindness.

(13) 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. The term applies to open or closed head injuries resulting in impairments in one or more areas, such as:

• Cognition
• Memory
• Reasoning
• Judgement
• Sensory
• Psychosocial behavior
• Information processing
• Language
• Attention
• Abstract thinking
• Problem-solving
• Perceptual and motor abilities
• Physical functions
• Speech

The term does not apply to brain injuries that are congenital or degenerative, or to brain injuries induced by birth trauma.

(14) 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. Other characteristics often associated with autism are:

• engagement in repetitive activities and stereotyped movements,
• resistance to environmental change or change in daily routines,
• 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 under Emotional Disturbance)

(15) Developmental Delay - (applies to children ages 3 - 5 only) Child must de experiencing a delay of at least 25% in one or more developmental areas which include:

• Cognitive
• Communication
• Motor
• Adaptive
• Social/Emotional