Special Education
Disabilities and Definitions
Description: The disabilities and definitions reflects the major category of disability under which the student needs special education services as defined by U.S. Department of Education and COMAR.
Mental Retardation - 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.
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.
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.
Speech or Language Impairments - a communication disorder such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment, or a voice impairment that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.
- Visual Impairments - an impairment in vision that, even with correction, adversely affects a child’s educational performance. The term includes both partial sight and blindness.
- Emotional Disturbance - 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:
(A) an inability to learn that 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;
(E) a tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems;
(F) includes schizophrenia;
(G) does not include a student who is socially maladjusted, unless it is determined that the student has an emotional disturbance.
Orthopedic Impairments - 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.), and impairments from other causes (e.g., cerebral palsy, amputations, and fractures or burns that cause contractures).
- Other Health Impairments - 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 a heart condition, tuberculosis, rheumatic fever, nephritis, asthma, attention deficit disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, sickle cell anemia, hemophilia, epilepsy, lead poisoning, leukemia, or diabetes that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.
- Specific Learning Disabilities - 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 such conditions as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. The term does not
apply to children who have learning problems that are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities, of mental retardation, of emotional disturbance, or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage
Multiple Disabilities - concomitant 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.
Deaf-Blindness - concomitant hearing and visual impairments, the combination of which caused 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.
- Traumatic Brain Injury - an acquired injury to the brain caused by an external physical force, resulting in total or partial functional disability or psychological 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; language; memory; attention; reasoning; abstract thinking; judgment; problem-solving; sensory; perceptual and motor abilities; psychosocial behavior; physical functions; information processing; and speech. The term does not apply to brain injuries that are conbirth trauma.
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, 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 a serious emotional disturbance.
Developmental Delay - This term may be used by a public agency utilizing the MSDE Developmental Delay definition. This term applies to a student, 3-9, who exhibits a 25% delay in one or more of the following areas: cognitive development; physical development, including vision and hearing; communication development; social and
emotional development; or adaptive development. Developmental Delay also includes atypical development or a diagnosed condition.
Reference: MSDE Definitions 2005 and COMAR
http://www.dsd.state.md.us/comar/13a/13a.05.01.03.htm