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.
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. Traumatic brain injury 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. Traumatic brain injury does not apply to brain injuries that are congenital or degenerative, or to brain injuries induced by birth trauma.
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.
Specific learning disability—
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—
Orthopedic impairment means a severe orthopedic impairment that adversely affects a child’s educational performance. The term includes impairments caused by a congenital anomaly, impairments caused by disease (e.g., poliomyelitis, bone tuberculosis), and impairments from other causes (e.g., cerebral palsy, amputations, and fractures or burns that cause contractures).
Intellectual disability 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. The term “intellectual disability” was formerly termed “mental retardation.”
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.
Education personnel in States, local educational agencies (LEAs), and schools across the nation have described challenges in developing and administering English language proficiency (ELP) assessments required under Titles I and III of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended (ESEA), to students who are both English Learners (ELs) and students with disabilities. Some of these challenges include:
Various mental health issues can fall under the “emotional disturbance” category. They may include anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and depression. (Some of these may also be covered under “other health impairment.”)
Emotional disturbance 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:
Emotional disturbance includes schizophrenia. The term does not apply to children who are socially maladjusted, unless it is determined that they have an emotional disturbance under paragraph (c)(4)(i) of this section.
Children aged three through nine experiencing developmental delays. Child with a disability for children aged three through nine (or any subset of that age range, including ages three through five), may, subject to the conditions described in §300.111(b), include a child—
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.
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.
Autism
Autism means a developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, generally evident before age three, 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.
Autism does not apply if a child’s educational performance is adversely affected primarily because the child has an emotional disturbance.
A child who manifests the characteristics of autism after age three could be identified as having autism if the criteria in paragraph of this section are satisfied.
Diagnostic Information
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires public schools to provide and to eligible students. But not every child who struggles in school qualifies. To be covered, a child’s school performance must be “adversely affected” by a disability in one of the 13 categories below.
12. Traumatic brain injury – This is a brain injury caused by an accident or some kind of physical force.
For more information, please visit IDEA (Individuals with Disability Education Act) at Sec. 300.8 Child with a disability
The student’s annual learning targets should address the skills that need support due to learning and thinking differences specified by the student’s previously stated diagnosis. Effective learning targets are strengths-based and SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results-oriented, and Time-bound.
Both parent(s) and the student will complete a vision statement. Parent and Student Vision Statements should define an educational and post-high school purpose for the student. Vision statements are meant to be achievable and measurable.
The term ‘best practices’ can be interpreted in different ways but it is most commonly agreed to be a term used to ‘demonstrate instructional balance in learning’ according to Benchmark Education
(https://benchmarkeducation.com/best-practices-library/how-to-effectively-observe-best-practices.html).
For a student, best practices will include:
For a parent(s), best practices will include:
For a core topic educator, best practices will include:
For an intervention specialist, best practices will include:
Please note: Saint Henry District High School does not accept state IEPs and 504 plans. Saint Henry District High School meets with the parents/guardians and creates an Academic Learning Plan that will include accommodations and modifications suggestions. Accommodations and Modifications are at the discretion of the classroom teacher. The parent/guardian acknowledgement of choosing “yes” below gives permission for Saint Henry District High School to save this Academic Learning Plan and associated evaluations/tests from health professionals in the google drive for the school and to be backed up in the Apple iCloud.
Testing accommodations remove obstacles to the test-taking process that are presented by the disability without reducing expectations for learning. The categories of testing accommodations most frequently required by students, as indicated in their IEPs/Section 504 accommodations plans (504 plans), are:
Testing modifications are changes made to the testing process or the content of the assessment that may change, lower, or reduce learning expectations. Testing modifications may also alter the underlying construct of the assessment. Examples of testing modifications that reduce expectations for learning and affect the construct of the test include:
In order to make informed, appropriate recommendations on testing accommodations for individual students, members of the ALP Committee should consider the following information about the tests in which the student will be expected to participate:
http://www.p12.nysed.gov/specialed/publications/documents/testing-accommodations-guide-june-2018.pdf
