Things have changed. Today, a variety of conditions qualify as educational disabilities. Once identified by a school system, these conditions mean that the needs of a student with such a disability must be accommodated. The school system must take steps to ensure that a child with an educational disability receives an appropriate education.
Most people know about a few of the educational disabilities that exist; but they don't usually know about the wide range of educational disabilities that have been given legal status under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This article simply provides a brief description of the different conditions that have been identified by the law as being disabilities.
Before going on, I should point out that while federal law sets forth guidelines, each state is individually responsible for interpreting the law and creating their own policy for implementing IDEA. So in every state, the definition of this or that disability may vary somewhat - and in some cases, even their names are different from state to state.
Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD): The name is misleading because learning disabilities are usually anything but specific. Basically, a child can be considered to have an SLD if the child's achievement level does not match up with their ability level in areas like their oral communication abilities, writing, reading skills and comprehension, or math. In other words, if the child has a basically average IQ but just can't seem to "get it" in one of these areas, the child can probably be classified as having a learning disability.
If all of that seems clear as mud, don't feel bad. SLD is the largest learning disability. About one-third of students involved in some sort of "special education" program because of an educational disability have been classified as having an SLD. And, while the current definition compares IQ and achievement to decide whether the child has a disability, more medically-oriented definitions have existed in the past and the direction of policy at the moment points toward an eventual return to a medical definition that would require a doctor to verify some condition or syndrome that would mean a child had an SLD.
