Kentucky Special Education Eligibility

Photo by Katie Cooper

1. Speech/Language Impairment means a communication disorder, including stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment, a voice impairment, delayed acquisition of language, or an absence of language, that adversely effects a child’s educational performance.

2. Functional Mental Disability means a child has a disability in which cognitive functioning is at least three or more standard deviations below the mean; adaptive behavior deficits are at least three or more standard deviations below the mean; a severe deficit exists in overall academic performance including acquisition, retention, and application of knowledge; and manifestation is typically during the developmental period.

3. Emotional-Behavior Disorder means that a child, when provided with interventions to meet instructional and social-emotional needs, continues to exhibit one or more of the following, when compared to the child’s peer and cultural reference groups, across setting, over a period of time and to a marked degree:

   1. severe deficits in social competence or appropriate behavior which cause an inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relations with adults or peers;

   2. severe deficits in academic performance which are not commensurate with the student’s ability level and are not solely a result of intellectual, sensory, or other health factors but are related to the child’s social-emotional problems;

   3. a general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression; or

   4. a tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems.

This term does not apply to children who display isolated (not necessarily one) inappropriate behavior that are the result of willful, intentional, or wanton actions unless it is determined through the evaluation process that the child does have this disability.

4. Multiple Disabilities means concomitant impairments that have an adverse effect on the child’s educational performance, the combination of which causes severe educational needs that cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for one of the impairments. Examples include mental disability – blindness, and mental disability – orthopedic impairment. (Does not include deaf-blindness nor speech or language impairment in combination with another category of disability.

5. Traumatic Brain Injury means an acquired injury to the brain (open or closed head injuries) caused by an external physical force, resulting in total or partial functional disability or psychosocial impairment, or both, that adversely effects a child’s educational performance. (Does not mean brain injuries that are congenital or degenerative, or brain injuries induced by birth trauma).

6. Autism means a developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, generally evident before age three that adversely effects a child’s educational performance. Other characteristics are engagement in repetitive activities and stereotyped movements, resistance to environmental change or change in daily routines, and unusual responses to sensory experiences. The term shall not apply if a child’s educational performance is adversely effected primarily because the child has an emotional-behavior disability.

7. Visual Impairment means a child has a vision loss, even with correction, as follows: visual acuity even with prescribed lenses that is 20/70 or worse in the better eye; or visual acuity that is better than 20/70 and the child has one of the following conditions: a medically diagnosed progressive loss of vision; a visual field of 20 degrees or worse; a medically diagnosed condition of cortical blindness; or a functional vision loss; requires specialized materials, instruction in orientation and mobility, Braille, visual efficiency, or tactile exploration; and has an adverse effect on the child’s educational performance.

8. Mild Mental Disability means that a child has a disability in which cognitive functioning is at least two but not more than three standard deviations below the mean; adaptive behavior deficit is at least two standard deviations below the mean; a severe deficit exists in overall academic performance including acquisition, retention, and application of knowledge, and manifestation is typically during the developmental period.

9. Other Health Impaired 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 a chronic or acute health problem (e.g., acquired immune deficiency syndrome, asthma, attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, diabetes, epilepsy, a heart condition, hemophilia, lead poisoning, leukemia, nephritis, rheumatic fever, sickle cell anemia, Tourette’s Syndrome, or tuberculosis; and adversely effects a child’s educational performance.

10. Deaf-Blind means concomitant hearing and visual impairments that have an adverse effect on the child’s education performance, the combination of which causes severe communication and other developmental and educational needs that cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for children with deafness or children with blindness, unless supplementary assistance is provided to address educational needs resulting from the two disabilities.

11. Specific Learning Disability means a disorder that adversely affects the ability to acquire, comprehend, or apply reading, mathematical, writing, reasoning, listening, or speaking skills to the extent that specially designed instruction is required to benefit from education. May include dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, developmental aphasia, and perceptual/motor disabilities. Does not include deficits that are the result of other primary determinant or disabling factors such as vision, hearing, motor impairment, mental disability, emotional-behavioral disability, environmental or economic disadvantaged, cultural factors, limited English proficiency, or lack of relevant research-based instruction in the deficit area.

12. Developmental Disability means that a child within the ages of three through eight has not acquired skills or achieved commensurate with recognized performance expectations for his age in one or more of the following developmental areas: cognition, communication, motor development, socio-emotional development, or self help/adaptive behavior.

13. Orthopedic Impairment means a severe impairment caused by a congenital anomaly (e.g., clubfoot, absence of some member, etc.); an impairment caused by disease (e.g., poliomyelitis, bone tuberculosis, etc.) and an impairment from other causes (e.g., cerebral palsy, amputations, and fractures or burns that cause contractures).

14. Hearing Impairment means that a child has a hearing loss that has an adverse effect on the child’s educational performance, which may be mild to profound, unilateral or bilateral, permanent or fluctuating resulting in difficulty identifying linguistic information through hearing.