What Counts as a Disability in Special Education?
Updated: December 11, 2025. Reviewer: Dr. Rose Sebastian, Ed.D.
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Which disabilities are included in IDEA?
Every federal law on disability had to define disability. Each did it slightly differently. In IDEA, there are 13 + 1 qualifying disability categories. 13 that apply from birth to age 22 and 1 that only applies to younger children. Each has a very specific definition and specific criteria that schools use to decide if a student qualifies under that category.
A medical diagnosis is not enough. Students have to have an “educational disability.” That means that they have to meet IDEA’s criteria for that disability. Even more confusingly, students can have diagnoses of things like Autism or ADHD through the school but not their doctors! Those would have to confirmed through doctors for any medical supports to be provided. The reverse can also happen– medical diagnoses in the community that have not been confirmed by the school.
Some disabilities are considered high incidence. Those are disabilities like OHI and specific learning disability that are common. Other disabilities are considered low incidence. Those are disabilities like visual impairment that are rarer.
Disability Under IDEA
Developmental Delay
Developmental delay is a catch all term for younger students. Younger students are hard to assess– it isn’t always clear what is wrong, but it is often clear that something is. That’s where this disability category comes in. It gets students services until an age where a more detailed assessment can be done and better data gotten.
In 34 C.F.R. § 300.8(c) IDEA defines this disability as follows:
(b) 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—
(1) Who is experiencing developmental delays, as defined by the State and as measured by appropriate diagnostic instruments and procedures, in one or more of the following areas: Physical development, cognitive development, communication development, social or emotional development, or adaptive development; and
(2) Who, by reason thereof, needs special education and related services.
Autism
Students with Autism make up about 13% of qualifying students, making it the fourth most common disability. Autism is a spectrum disability. It includes students who are nonverbal and will receive disability support their entire lives. It also includes incredibly high functioning people who go on to start multi-billion dollar companies. Typically, assessments will include Autism rating scales. Unfortunately, there is no blood or brain test that schools have for Autism. Instead, it is identified by behavioral indicators. Parents, teachers, and often the student will complete scales that look at things like how the student does with social communication. Many times speech and language pathologists will also be included in the assessment team to look at communication needs.
In 34 C.F.R. § 300.8(c) IDEA defines this disability as follows:
(i) 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.
(ii) Autism does not apply if a child’s educational performance is adversely affected primarily because the child has an emotional disturbance, as defined in paragraph (c)(4) of this section.
(iii) A child who manifests the characteristics of autism after age three could be identified as having autism if the criteria in paragraph (c)(1)(i) of this section are satisfied.
Deaf-Blindness
Deaf-blindness is one of the rarest of disability categories. Very few students qualify under this and those who do need extensive, disability specific supports to help them communicate. Note that students don’t actually have to be Deaf or blind. They just need hearing and visual impairments.
In 34 C.F.R. § 300.8(c) IDEA defines this disability as follows:
(2) 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.
Deafness
IDEA separates Deafness and hearing impairments. Most states and districts though will lump them into one category– DHH or Deaf and hard of hearing. Note that Deaf is a capitalized word. These are students who need supports such as an ASL translator.
In 34 C.F.R. § 300.8(c) IDEA defines this disability as follows:
(3) 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.
Emotional Disturbance
Four percent of students with disabilities qualify under this disability. In general, a lot more Black kids than other kids qualify under it. As a result, this is a key disability category looked at in federal audits to ensure that students are being treated and qualifying fairly. Therefore, in many states, schools don’t want to use this label. It is also a high stakes label that can impact opportunities, like the military, after high school. As a result, in many states students with similar profiles are given IEPs under OHI instead. It gets around state audits and can be better for students long term. So the number of students qualifying under ED is a massive understatement of the number of students receiving services for emotional or behavioral challenges.
In 34 C.F.R. § 300.8(c) IDEA defines this disability as follows:
(i) 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:
(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.
(ii) 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.
Hearing Impairment
A hearing impairment is not Deafness. One percent of students qualify under this. Many of these students use supports such as hearing aids or FM systems or both. Most will have support from a district audiologist and a DHH support provider who can help ensure that their hearing needs are being met. These students often seem highly distracted and inattentive. When you can’t hear everything, you miss stuff. The challenge is recognizing the hearing needs within the behaviors– that’s where expert support comes in and is hugely important.
In 34 C.F.R. § 300.8(c) IDEA defines this disability as follows:
(5) 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.
Intellectual Disability
Six percent of students qualify under this category. Qualifying requires both an estimated IQ in the lower range (79 or below on an IQ test or something equivalent in states that don’t IQ test) and challenges in adaptive living skills. That might mean difficulty finding their way around new places, crossing streets, or taking care of themselves.
In 34 C.F.R. § 300.8(c) IDEA defines this disability as follows:
(6) 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.”
Multiple Disabilities
Multiple disabilities does not mean having any two disabilities. If a student has a learning disability (SLD) and ADHD, they get a primary of SLD and a secondary of OHI (other health impaired) on their IEPs. They do not qualify under multiple disabilities. This means two of the more rare and severe disabilities. These are students who need extensive help. For example, the student might use a wheelchair and have an intellectual delay that is significant.
In 34 C.F.R. § 300.8(c) IDEA defines this disability as follows:
(7) Multiple disabilities means concomitant impairments (such as intellectual disability-blindness or 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. Multiple disabilities does not include deaf-blindness.
Orthopedic Impairment
This is one of the rarest disabilities. Most students who use wheelchairs don’t need special education. The Americans with Disabilities Act is the law that gets wheelchair ramps and elevator access. Using a wheelchair or prosthetic or crutches does not mean you need a special education case manager. However, there are cases where the medical condition causing the mobility limitations also impacts how the student learns, processes information, or communicates with others. In those cases, the student would qualify under orthopedic impairment.
In 34 C.F.R. § 300.8(c) IDEA defines this disability as follows:
(8) 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).
Other Health Impairment
Fifteen percent of students with IEPs are served under OHI. ADHD falls under the other health impaired bucket. So does diabetes and sickle cell. This is a big category where academic need matters. A student can have diabetes and not need special education services. They might need a 504 to specify nursing support, but not a case manager for academic support. For some students though, the disability really impacts their ability to access classes and education and so they get an IEP for their health impairment.
In 34 C.F.R. § 300.8(c) IDEA defines this disability as follows:
(9) 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—
(i) Is due to chronic or acute health problems such as asthma, attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, diabetes, epilepsy, a heart condition, hemophilia, lead poisoning, leukemia, nephritis, rheumatic fever, sickle cell anemia, and Tourette syndrome; and
(ii) Adversely affects a child’s educational performance.
Specific Learning Disability
32 percent of all students with IEPs are served under this category. This is the category where fancy terms like response to intervention come into play. It used to be that, to qualify for SLD, a student needed to have cognitive assessments that showed patterns of strengths and weaknesses and academic assessments that showed the same. With RTI, however, districts gained the flexibility of qualifying students under learning disability based on how they responded to interventions. There were a lot of students who really needed services who used to get excluded. RTI was a way to get them services.
In 34 C.F.R. § 300.8(c) IDEA defines this disability as follows:
(10) Specific learning disability—
(i) General. Specific learning disability 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, including conditions such as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia.
(ii) Disorders not included. Specific learning disability does not include learning problems that are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities, of intellectual disability, of emotional disturbance, or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.
Speech or Language Impairment
Speech or language impairment means that a student’s communication is primarily what is keeping them from learning. Generally, this is used for younger students and the speech pathologist is actually the case manager– not a special education teacher. Sometimes a special education teacher is the case manager but with this disability the student always has to have SLP services on their IEP. Generally, this disability category is phased out in late elementary school in favor of one that explains why the student is having trouble communicating. The student might still get SLP services but the team wants to understand what is going on and why the student is having prolonged communication challenges.
In 34 C.F.R. § 300.8(c) IDEA defines this disability as follows:
(11) 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.
Traumatic Brain Injury
Traumatic brain injury is one of the most varied disability categories. Something happened to the student’s brain that changed how they learned and processed information. Some students with this change enormously over time. I had a student who had to relearn how to walk and toilet and talk in kindergarten. By 5th grade, she presented as having a mild learning disability. Other individuals have injuries that are even more significant and they recover less over time. It is incredibly important to work with medical professionals if you have a TBI student. Each brain injury is totally unique and the team needs medical input to truly serve these students well.
In 34 C.F.R. § 300.8(c) IDEA defines this disability as follows:
(12) 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.
Visual Impairment
Students do not have to be blind to qualify for this disability. Many people under this category benefit from larger text and enlargement devices, like magnifiers. Some need strips on stairs that are different colors to prevent slipping. Some might need orientation and mobility services– but it is incredibly important to know what exactly the student can see with their glasses.
In 34 C.F.R. § 300.8(c) IDEA defines this disability as follows:
(13) 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.
