Categories of Disabilities

Categories of Disabilities 

Welcome to our Disabilities topic presentation. To have a disability means that one has fundamental difficulty accomplishing things that others take for granted. Disabilities can be physical in nature (an inability to walk due to amputation, or muscular or neurological dysfunction, for example), sensory (as in blindness, or deafness), cognitive (as in brain damage or mental retardation), behavioral (as in an inability to work), or even emotional.

Autism spectrum disorder

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.

Deaf-Blindness

It means concomitant [simultaneous] 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.

Developmental delay

It is used for children under 5 years when it be notice that the child was delayed from the usual growth standards clearly cannot be determined with the severity of the delay in the different areas of growth, particularly when it cannot measure the mental capacity of a child.

Hearing Impairment

It means an impairment in hearing, whether permanent or fluctuating, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance but is not included under the definition of “deafness.”

Emotional Disturbance

It means a condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics:

a)      An inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors.

b)      An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers.

c)       Inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances.

d)      A general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression.

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

Intellectual Disability

It means significantly sub average general intellectual functioning, existing concurrently [at the same time] with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.

Multiple Disabilities

It means concomitant [simultaneous] impairments (such as intellectual disability-blindness,

Intellectual disability-orthopedic impairment), the combination of which causes such severe educational needs that they cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for one of the impairments.

Orthopedic Impairment

It 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).

Speech or Language Impairment

It 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

It 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 the imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations.

Traumatic Brain Injury

It 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.

Visual Impairment

It means an impairment in vision that, even with correction, adversely affects a child’s educational performance. The term includes both partial sight and blindness.

Other Health Impairment

It 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.


Video link:

https://youtu.be/EjWg1UIU3gc