A Parent's Guide to Special Education Eligibility and Placement

Eligibility guidelines provide IEP teams with criteria. These criteria are used to determine if a child meets the eligibility requirements for a disability under federal and state special education laws. Each eligibility category is prefaced with the legal requirements for establishing eligibility. Determinations of eligibility, placement, and services are an Individual Education Program (IEP) team decision. This decision is based upon the results of a multi-disciplinary team evaluation.

Eligibility categories addressed by these guidelines include the following:

Autism (AUT) - P.L. 105-17 (IDEA), Title 34, CFR, 300.7(c)(1)(i-ii): a developmental disability that significantly affects verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction. It is generally evident before age 3 and 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.

Deafness(Deaf) - P.L. 101-476 (IDEA), Title 34, CFR, 300.7(c)(3): a hearing impairment so severe that the child is impaired in processing linguistic information through hearing. This is true with or without amplification and must adversely affect educational performance.

Deaf/Blindness - P.L. 105-107 (IDEA), Title 34, CRF, 300.7(c)(2): having both hearing and visual impairments at the same time. The combination causes such severe communication and other developmental and educational needs that the child cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for deafness or blindness.

Emotional Disturbance (ED) - P.L. 105-17 (IDEA), CFR, 300.7(c)(4): a. The term means a condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree. This condition must adversely affect educational performance:

(1) An inability to learn which 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. b. The term includes schizophrenia. The term does not include children who are socially maladjusted, unless it is determined that they have an emotional disturbance.

Hard of Hearing (HH) - P.L. 105-17 (IDEA), CFR, 300.7(c)(5): an impairment in hearing, whether permanent or fluctuating, that adversely affects a child's educational performance.

Intellectual Disabilities (ID) - P.L. 105-17 (IDEA), CFR 300.7(c)(6): significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning. It exists concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and is manifested during the developmental period. This disability must adversely affect a child's educational performance.

Multiple Disabilities (MD) - P.L. 105-17 (IDEA), Title 34, CRF 300.7(c)(7): having two or more impairments at the same time (such as intellectual disability-blindness, intellectual disability-orthopedic impairment, etc.). The combination causes such severe educational needs that the child cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for one of the impairments. The term does not include deaf-blindness.

Orthopedic Impairment (OI) - P.L. 105-17 (IDEA), Title 34, CFR, 300.7(c)(8): a severe orthopedic impairment that adversely affects a child's educational performance. The term includes impairments caused by congenital anomaly (e.g., clubfoot), impairments caused by disease (e.g., poliomyelitis), and impairments from other causes (e.g., cerebral palsy, amputations, or burns).

Other Health Impairment (OHI) - P.L. 105-17 (IDEA), Title 34, CFR 300.7(c)(9): having limited strength, vitality, or alertness. This includes a heightened alertness to environmental stimuli that results in limited alertness with respect to the educational environment. The condition must: (i) Be 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 (ii) Adversely affect a child's educational performance.

Specific Learning Disability (SLD) - P.L. 105-17 (IDEA), Title 34, CFR, 300.7(c)(10): a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written. The disorder may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations. It includes conditions such as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. The term does not include learning problems that are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities, of an intellectual disability, of an emotional disturbance, or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.

Speech and Language Impairment (SLI) - P.L. 105-17 (IDEA), Title 34, CFR 300.7(c)(11): a communication disorder that adversely affects a child's educational performance. This can include issues such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment, or a voice impairment.

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) - P.L. 105-17 (IDEA), Title 34, CFR 300.7(c)(12): an acquired injury to the brain caused by an external physical force. It results in total or partial functional disability, psychosocial impairment, or both, and must adversely affect a child's educational performance. The term applies to open or closed head injuries resulting in impairments in areas such as cognition, language, memory, attention, reasoning, abstract thinking, and problem-solving. 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 (VI) - P.L. 101476 (IDEA), CFR, 300.5(b)(11): an impairment in vision that, even with correction, adversely affects a child's educational performance. The term includes both partial sight and blindness.

"The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn." - John Lubbock

"They may forget what you said but they will never forget how you made them feel." - Carol Buchner