Disability Categories
The Indiana Department of Education Article 7 defines 13 disability categories. You can find these categories and their legal definitions below!
| Disability Category | Definition |
|---|---|
| Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) | Autism spectrum disorder is a lifelong developmental disability that includes autistic disorder, Asperger's syndrome, and other pervasive developmental disorders, as described in the current version of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The disability is generally evident before three years of age and significantly affects verbal, nonverbal, or pragmatic communication and social interaction skills and results in an adverse effect on the student's educational performance. |
| Blind or Low Vision (BLV) |
Blind or low vision, which may be referred to as a visual impairment, means a disability that even with best correction affects the student's ability to use vision for learning, which adversely affects the student's educational performance. The term includes a reduced ability or a complete inability to utilize the visual system to acquire information; and may include or be limited to a reduction in field of vision. Students who have vision needs are supported by MCAS in conjunction with the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (ISBVI). For further information about ISBVI, please click here: ISBVI |
| Deaf-Blind (DB) |
Deaf-blind, which may be referred to as dual sensory impaired, means a disability that is a concomitant hearing and vision loss or reduction in functional hearing and vision capacity. Deaf- blind causes significant communication and adaptive behavior deficits; adversely affects the student's educational performance; and cannot be accommodated by use of a program or service designed solely for students who are deaf or hard of hearing; or blind or have low vision. Students who have vision needs are supported by MCAS in conjunction with the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (ISBVI). For further information about ISBVI, please click here: ISBVI |
| Deaf or Hard of Hearing (DHH) | Deaf or hard of hearing, which may be referred to as a hearing impairment, means a disability that, with or without amplification, adversely affects the student's ability to use hearing for developing language and learning; educational performance; and developmental progress. The hearing loss may be permanent or fluctuating; mild to profound; or unilateral or bilateral. Students who are deaf or hard of hearing may use spoken language, sign language, or a combination of spoken language and signed systems. |
| Developmental Delay (DD) | Developmental delay is a disability category solely for students who are at least three years of age and less than nine years of age. Developmental delay means a delay of either two standard deviations below the mean in one of the following developmental areas or one and one-half standard deviations below the mean in any two of the following developmental areas: gross or fine motor development, cognitive development, receptive or expressive language development, social or emotional development, and self-help or other adaptive development. |
| Emotional Disability (ED) | Emotional disability means an inability to learn or progress that cannot be explained by cognitive, sensory, or health factors. The student exhibits one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree that adversely affects educational performance: a tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems, a general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression, an inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships, inappropriate behaviors or feelings under normal circumstances, or episodes of psychosis. |
| Intellectual Disability (ID) | An intellectual disability is manifested during the developmental period. It is characterized by significant limitations in intellectual functioning and it is demonstrated through limitations in adaptive behavior and adversely affects educational performance. |
| Language or Speech Impairment (LSI) | A language or speech impairment is characterized by one of the following impairments that adversely affects the student's educational performance: language impairments in the comprehension or expression of spoken or written language resulting from organic or non organic causes that are non maturational in nature. Language impairments affect the student's primary language systems, in one or more of the following components: word retrieval, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics. Speech impairments that may include fluency, articulation, and voice disorders in the student’s speaking behavior in more than one speaking task that are non maturational in nature, including impairments that are the result of a deficiency of structure and function of the oral peripheral mechanism. |
| Multiple Disabilities (MD) | Multiple disabilities means coexisting disabilities, one of which must be a significant cognitive disability. The coexisting disabilities are lifelong and interfere with independent functioning, and it is difficult to determine which disability most adversely affects educational performance. The term does not include deaf-blind. |
| Other Health Impairment (OHI) | 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 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; sickle cell anemia; and Tourette syndrome; and adversely affects a student’s educational performance. |
| Orthopedic Impairment (OI) | An orthopedic impairment is a severe physically disabling condition that adversely affects educational performance. The term may include impairments caused by any of the following: a congenital anomaly; a disease, such as: poliomyelitis, or bone tuberculosis; other causes, such as: cerebral palsy; amputations; or fractures or burns that cause contractures. |
| Specific Learning Disability (SLD) | Specific learning disability means a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, that adversely affect the student's educational performance, including conditions referred to, or previously referred to, as perceptual handicaps, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. |
| Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) | A traumatic brain injury is 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 student's educational performance. The term applies to open or closed head injuries resulting in impairments in one or more areas, such as the following: 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 induced by birth trauma. |