Educational advocates are familiar with the laws protecting children with disabilities, guaranteeing that children receive therapy, services and appropriate school placement. Educational advocates are also knowledgeable about childhood disabilities and can guide parents to qualified resources for their disabled children.

Each month Joan A. Harrington and Rachel Shamah will answer your questions relating to education and disabled children.

Q. Dear Advocate,
I believe my son has serious emotional issues. Would he be eligible for services from the Department of Education?
Signed,
Concerned Parent

A. Dear Concerned Parent,
If your son's emotional issues are negatively affecting his academics then yes, he will probably be eligible. There are about a dozen disabilities that qualify a child to receive special education and/or related services under the Federal Law, specifically, The Individual with Disabilities Education Act. As you will see, most of the areas below describe serious disabilities. Children who are emotionally disturbed, however, benefit as well. The disabilities that qualify, in alphabetical order, are:

Autism: A developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, generally evident before age three, which adversely affects a child's educational performance.

Deafness-Blindness: Simultaneous hearing and visual impairments, the combination of which causes severe communication and other developmental and educational needs.

Deafness-Hearing Impairment: A hearing impairment that is so severe that the child is hampered in his ability to process information acquired through hearing, with or without amplification, whether permanent or fluctuating.

Emotional Disturbance: A child of typical intelligence who has difficulty, over time and to a marked degree, building satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers; responds inappropriately, behaviorally or emotionally, under normal circumstances; demonstrates a pervasive mood of unhappiness or has a tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears. The child experiences an inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual or health factors.

Mental Retardation: Significantly below average general intellectual functioning, existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior, and manifested during the developmental period, that adversely affects a child's educational performance.

Multiple Disabilities: The manifestation of two or more disabilities (such as mental retardation and blindness), the combination of which requires special accommodation for maximal learning, and causes such severe educational needs that the child cannot be accommodated in a special education program solely for one of the impairments.

Orthopedic Impairment: A severe orthopedic impairment that adversely affects a child's educational performance. The term includes impairments caused by a congenital anomaly (clubfoot, absent limb), impairments caused by disease (tuberculosis, etc.), and impairments from other causes (cerebral palsy, amputations, and fractures or burns).

Other Health Impaired: 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, diabetes, epilepsy, a heart condition, hemophilia, lead poisoning, leukemia, rheumatic fever, sickle cell anemia and Tourette syndrome. Attention Deficit (Hyperactivity) Disorder also falls under this category.

Speech or Language Impairment: A communication disorder such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment (such as language processing) or a voice impairment, that adversely affects a child's educational performance.

Specific Learning Disability: The child does not achieve adequately for his age or does not meet State approved grade level standards in one or more of the following areas: oral expression, listening comprehension, written expression, basic reading skills, reading fluency skills, reading comprehension, mathematics, calculation and problem solving. The child exhibits a pattern of strengths and weaknesses in performance, achievement or intellectual development, that is not primarily the result of a visual, hearing or motor disability; mental retardation; emotional disturbance; cultural factors; environmental or economic disadvantage; or limited English proficiency. A specific learning disability is 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 an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations.

Traumatic Brain Injury: 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, including: 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 include brain injuries that are congenital or degenerative, or brain injuries induced by birth trauma.

Visual Impairment: An impairment in vision that, even with correction, adversely affects a child's educational performance. The term includes both partial sight and blindness.
Infants and toddlers up to two years old can receive early intervention services if they are experiencing developmental delays—as measured by appropriate diagnostic instruments and procedures—in the following areas of development: cognitive, physical (including vision and hearing), adaptive or communicative (social or emotional). A child with a diagnosed physical or mental condition that has a high probability of resulting in developmental delay is also eligible.

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