One of the most important contributions of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is the specific definitions of disability. This gives both parents and schools a clear idea of how to approach each child requiring special needs. In order to cover all bases, the Act lists thirteen categories of disability:

1. Autism
2. ADD & ADHD
3. Deaf-blindness
4. Deafness
5. Dyslexia
6. Emotional disturbance
7. Hearing impairment
8. Mental retardation
9. Multiple disabilities (other than deaf-blindness)
10. Orthopedic impairment
11. Other health impairment (including ADD/ADHD)
12. Specific learning disability
13. Speech or language impairment
14. Traumatic brain injury
15. Visual impairment (including. blindness)

Additionally, developmental delay is considered a disability under IDEA. It provides for children aged 3 to 9 who are measurably delayed in one of these areas:

• physical development
• cognitive development
• communication development
• social or emotional development
• adaptive development

Remember that the purpose of the definitions (and the Act itself) is to consider every child who cannot benefit from regular classroom learning environments without special attention. The first step is your child’s professional evaluation, which will help classify his or her struggles under one of the above categories. From there, the Act guarantees that you have a framework for obtaining your child’s free and appropriate education.

Source:
IDEA ’97 Final Regulations, Section 300.7
www.ideapractices.org

Click Here for the definition of disability under IDEA.

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Autism
Autism means a developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, generally evident before age 3, 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 an emotional disturbance, as defined in paragraph (b)(4) of this section.

ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) & ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)
ADD’s characteristics include being easily distracted, having difficulty listening and following directions, focusing and sustaining attention, and having trouble concentrating or staying on task. Children with ADHD have similar characteristics to a child with ADD, but ADHD children demonstrate impulsive behaviors, a high activity level, difficulty with transitions, being easily over-stimulated or aggressive, social immaturity, a high frustration level, and low self-esteem. Click Here for more information on the Detection, Causes and Future of ADD & ADHD.

Deaf-blindness
Deaf-blindness means 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.

Deafness
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.

Dyslexia
is a common learning disability. Dyslexics have difficulty in single word decoding, usually reflecting a poor ability in phonological processing. These difficulties have no relation to age and other cognitive and academic abilities; they are not the result of generalized developmental disability or sensory impairment. Dyslexia is clear by difficulty in different forms of language, including problems with reading and an obvious problem with acquiring proficiency in writing and spelling.

Emotional disturbance
The term means 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 feelings under normal circumstances.

4. A general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression.

5. A tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems.

The term includes schizophrenia. The term does not apply to children who are socially maladjusted, unless it is determined that they have an emotional disturbance.

Hearing impairment
Hearing impairment means 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 in this section.

Mental retardation
Mental retardation means 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.

Multiple disabilities (other than deaf-blindness)
Multiple disabilities means 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.

Orthopedic impairment
Orthopedic impairment means a severe orthopedic impairment that adversely affects a child's educational performance. The term includes impairments caused by congenital anomaly (e.g., clubfoot, 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 impairment (including ADD/ADHD)
Other health impairment 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, and sickle cell anemia; and

2. Adversely affects a child's educational performance.

Specific learning disability
Specific learning disability is defined as follows:

1. General. The term 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 an 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.

2. Disorders not included. The term does not include 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.

Speech or language impairment
Speech or language impairment means a communication disorder, such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment, or a voice impairment, that adversely affects a child's educational performance.

Traumatic brain injury
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, 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 congenital or degenerative, or to brain injuries induced by birth trauma.

Visual impairment (including blindness)
Visual impairment including blindness means an impairment in vision that, even with correction, adversely affects a child's educational performance. The term includes both partial sight and blindness.