There are eight ways to qualify for special education services! If the District decides your child doesn't qualify as Learning Disabled, he/she may qualify under another category.

In order to receive special education services from the school district, a student must qualify in at least one of eight categories.

1. Specific learning disability

To qualify as learning disabled, a severe discrepancy between intellectual ability and achievement must exist in one or more of the following areas:

• Oral expression
• Listening comprehension
• Written expression
• Basic reading skills
• Reading comprehension
• Mathematics calculation
• Mathematics reasoning

AND the discrepancy is attributed to a deficit in one or more of the following psychological processes:

• attention
• visual processing
• auditory processing
• sensory-motor skills
• cognitive abilities including association, conceptualization and/or expression.

2. Serious emotional disturbance

Qualification in this category is not based on a psychiatric diagnosis, but the student must demonstrate one or more of following criteria:

• Inability to learn which cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors
• Inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers
• Inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances exhibited in several situations
• General pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression
• Tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems

3. Autistic-like behaviors

A pupil exhibits any combination of the following autistic-like behaviors, to include but not limited to:

• An inability to use oral language for appropriate communication
• A history of extreme withdrawal or relating to people inappropriately and continued impairment in social interaction from infancy through early childhood
• An obsession to maintain sameness
• Extreme preoccupation with objects or inappropriate use of objects or both
• Extreme resistance to controls
• Displays peculiar motoric mannerisms and motility patterns
• Self-stimulating, ritualistic behavior

4. Other health impairments

• Limited strength, vitality or alertness due to chronic or acute health problems
• Not temporary

5. Hearing and/or visual impairment

6. Language or speech disorder

The pupil meets one or more of the following criteria:

• Articulation disorder
• Abnormal voice
• Fluency disorder
• Language disorder
  • receptive or expressive
  • morphology, syntax, semantics, or pragmatics

7. Severe orthopedic impairment

8. Mental retardation

Eligibility for preschool children between the ages of 3 and 5 years must have one or more of the following disabling conditions:

• Autism
• Deaf-blindness 
• Deafness 
• Hearing impairment 
• Mental retardation 
• Multiple disabilities 
• Orthopedic impairment 
• Other health impairment 
• Serious emotional disturbance 
• Specific learning disability 
• Speech or language impairment in one or more of voice, fluency, language and articulation 
• Traumatic brain injury 
• Visual impairment
• Established medical disability

Eligibility Criteria for Individuals Age Birth to Four Years and Nine Months

1. Gross or fine motor development
2. Receptive or expressive language development
3. Social or emotional development
4. Cognitive development
5. Visual development
6. Disabling medical condition