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Students may receive
special education services if they meet the eligibility criteria
outlined in Chapter 392-172 of the Washington Administrative
Code (WAC). The disability must adversely impact their
educational performance in the general education program and
require students to receive specially designed
instruction.
The
eligible disability categories include:
Developmentally
Delayed > top
Children suspected of having a developmental delay are tested in
one or more of five developmental areas. These areas
are:
- Cognitive
development, defined as comprehending, remembering, and making
sense out of one’s experience;
- Communication
development, which is the ability to effectively use or
understand age-appropriate language, including vocabulary, grammar,
and speech sounds;
- Physical
development, which includes fine and/or gross motor skills
requiring precise, coordinated, use of small muscles, and/or motor
skills used for body control such as standing, walking, balance,
and climbing;
- Social/Emotional
development, dealing with the development and maintenance of
functional interpersonal relationships;
- Adaptive
development, which encompasses age appropriate self-help
skills, including independent feeding, toileting, personal hygiene,
and dressing skills.
Emotionally/Behaviorally
Disabled >
top
Students exhibit one or more of the following characteristics over
a long period of time: the inability to learn that cannot be
explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors; the
inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal
relationships with peers and teachers; inappropriate types of
behavior or feelings under normal circumstances; a general
pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression; or a tendency to
develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or
school problems.
Communication
Disordered > top
Students have a documented speech or language impairment such as
stuttering, voice disorder, or impaired articulation.
Health
Impaired >
top
Students have limited strength, vitality or alertness, including a
heightened alertness to environmental stimuli. Their condition
results in limited alertness to the educational environment due to
chronic or acute health problems, such as a heart condition,
rheumatic fever, nephritis, asthma, attention deficit disorder or
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, sickle cell anemia,
hemophilia, lead poisoning, leukemia, or diabetes.
Specific Learning
Disability > top
A specific learning disability is a disorder in one or more of the
basic psychological processes involved in understanding or using
spoken or written language that may manifest itself in an imperfect
ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do
mathematical calculations. These conditions include perceptual
disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia,
and developmental aphasia. A student with this disability does not
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.
Mental
Retardation > top
Students demonstrate general intellectual functioning
significantly below average, existing concurrently with deficits in
adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental
period.
Autism > top
Autism is a developmental disability generally evident before the
age of three. It significantly affects a student's verbal and
nonverbal communication and social interaction in addition to a
student’s educational performance. Some behaviors indicative
of autism are engagement in repetitive activities and stereotyped
movements, resistance to environmental change or change in daily
routines, and unusual responses to sensory experiences.
Deafness >
top
Students have a documented hearing impairment that is so severe
that the student is impaired in processing linguistic information
through hearing, with or without amplification.
Hearing
Impaired >
top
Students have hearing impairments, whether permanent or
fluctuating, that are not included under the definition of
deafness.
Visually
Impaired/Blindness > top
Students have a visual impairment that even with correction
adversely affects the student’s educational performance and
requires specially designed instruction. The term includes both
partial sight and blindness.
Deaf/Blindness >
top
Students have both signficant deafness and blindness.
Orthopedically
Impaired > top
Students lack normal function of muscles, joints, or bones due to
congenital anomaly, disease, or permanent injury.
Multi-Disabled > top
Students with multiple disabilities have a combination of
conditions, such as mental retardation-blindness or mental
retardation-orthopedic impairment, that 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.
Traumatic Brain
Injured >
top
“Traumatic brain injury” means an acquired injury to
the brain caused by an external physical force resulting in total
or partial functional disability or psychosocial impairment, or
both. The term applies to open or closed head injuries resulting in
impairments in one or more of the following areas, including:
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 congenital or degenerative or brain injuries induced by
birth trauma.
Updated
August 3, 2006
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