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IDEA Definition
Emotional disturbance is defined as a condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a degree that adversely affects a child’s educational performance:
-An inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors.
-An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers.
-Inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances.
- A general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression.
-A tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems.

Etiology
There is no known cause for emotional disturbance, but several factors are thought to influence the condition including heredity, brain disorder, diet, stress, and family functioning.

Prevalence
One in ten children in the United States are determined to have some level of emotional disturbance.

Prevention
Prevention includes a focus on mental health in adults and children. Additionally, education about healthy pregnancies to stop exposure to alcohol or drugs in the fetus are known ways to prevent emotional disturbance.

Characteristics
Characteristics of Emotional Disturbance include a mood of unhappiness or depression, fears and anxiety, difficulty with interpersonal relationships, inappropriate behavior in otherwise normal situation and the inability to learn without intellectual, sensory or other health factors.

Impact on Academic Performance
In reading, math and writing students with ED may have trouble learning to read, apply math concepts or construct written responses. There may be difficulty applying strategies to higher level thinking like comprehension.

Impact on Social and Behavioral Progress
Students with ED may be unable to develop and keep appropriate, satisfactory social relationships with family, peers, and adults in the school system.

Assessment
Rating scales are used to identify characteristics of emotional disturbance, to identify the extent of behaviors (intensity, frequency), and to reflect the observations of those who regularly engage with the individual (e.g., teacher, parent).

Instructional Approaches
Teaching strategies include keeping class rules/activities simple and clear and rewarding positive behaviors. There should be allowance for mini-breaks, fair treatment for all and motivational strategies.

Assistive Technology/ Additional Resources
Students benefit from schedules, reminder devices, speech to text/word prediction, audiobooks and talking Calculators.

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IDEA Definition
Autism is defined as a developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction. Autism is generally evident before age three and it 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.

Etiology There is no known single cause for autism spectrum disorder, but it is generally accepted that it is caused by abnormalities in brain structure or function. Brain scans show differences in the shape and structure of the brain in children with autism compared to in typical children.

Prevalence
About 1 in 44 children has been identified with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) according to estimates from CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network.

Prevention
No known prevention available.

Characteristics
The primary characteristics are 1) poorly developed social skills, 2) difficulty with expressive and receptive communication, and 3) the presence of restrictive and repetitive behaviors.

Impact on Academic Performance
Students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience reading comprehension difficulties, often misinterpreting complex texts, metaphors, and idioms.  In Math, students  difficulty in math word problem solving due to executive functioning.Since students with autism exhibit difficulty with organizing, there is difficulty in ordering and understanding the order of operations in multiple-step word problems.
Students with Autism demonstrate difficulty with handwriting because they have difficulty with forming their letters, spacing and organizing letters.

Impact on Social and Behavioral Progress
Students with Autism have difficulty with social interaction behaviors, including establishing and maintaining relationships, reciprocating social interaction, and communicating with others.

Assessment
Research has found that ASD can sometimes be detected at 18 months or younger. By age 2, a diagnosis by an experienced professional can be considered very reliable. However, many children do not receive a final diagnosis until they are much older. This delay means that children with an ASD might not get the help they need. The earlier an ASD is diagnosed, the sooner treatment services can begin.  The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that all children be screened for developmental delays and disabilities during regular well-child doctor visits at: 9 months, 18 months, and 30 months.

Instructional Approaches
Strategies include avoiding sensory overload. Students with autism can be distracted by unexpected things in their environment, such as bright lights, smells, and sounds. Teachers should use visuals, be predictable, use concrete language, teach social skills directly, and treat students as individuals.

Assistive Technology/ Additional Resources
Likely the most common use of technology to help children and adults with autism is to improve communication skills. There are hundreds of apps and many built-in features of these devices that can help support individuals with autism at all levels and abilities.

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IDEA Definition
Speech or language impairment is defined as a communication disorder, such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment, or a voice impairment, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.

Etiology |
Some causes of speech and language disorders include hearing loss, neurological disorders, brain injury, intellectual disabilities, drug abuse, physical impairments such as cleft lip or palate, and vocal abuse or misuse. Frequently, however, the cause is unknown.

Prevalence
Of the 6.1 million children with disabilities who received special education under IDEA in public schools in the 2005-2006 school year, more than 1.1 million were served under the category of speech or language impairment. This estimate does not include children who have speech/language problems secondary to other conditions such as deafness, intellectual disability, autism, or cerebral palsy.

Prevention
Prenatal health and attention to healthy environments are the only known prevention.

Characteristics
Characteristics include limited vocabulary and incorrect use of morphemes (word structures).  Other difficulties include stuttering, articulation, and pragmatic language.

Impact on Academic Performance
In reading, students who have difficulty recognizing different syllables and sounds may have trouble sounding out words as they read. Delayed language development may also contribute to a limited vocabulary which can cause difficulty with reading comprehension. Additionally, a student with a language disorder often has difficulty expressing their thoughts on paper.

Impact on Social and Behavioral Progress
Difficulty with language skills may influence the development of behavior problems because poor language and communication skills may interfere with socialization.

Assessment
Standardized assessments are used by an SLP to determine the presence of a disability and the severity.Tests include: CELF-5, PLS-5 English, Bayley-III, GFTA-3, and DAS-II.

Instructional Approaches
Teachers should encourage and accept all forms of communication. While talking, teachers should be conscious of their own communication style, teach active listening skills, give time to think and respond to questions, use sound discrimination exercises, help with sequencing and word order, build vocabulary, and help build self-esteem.

Assistive Technology/ Additional Resources The terms assistive device or assistive technology can refer to any device that helps a person with hearing loss or a voice, speech, or language disorder to communicate. These terms often refer to devices that help a person to hear and understand what is being said more clearly or to express thoughts more easily

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IDEA Definition
Other health impairment is defined as having limited strength, vitality, or alertness, including a heightened alertness to environmental stimuli, that results in limited alertness with respect to the educational environment.

Etiology
ADHD is directly related to brain anatomy and function. A lower level of activity in the parts of the brain that control attention and activity level may be associated with ADHD. ADHD frequently runs in families. A child with ADHD has a 1 in 4 chance of having a parent with ADHD.  Significant head injuries may cause ADHD in some cases. Additionally, prematurity increases the risk of developing ADHD. Prenatal exposures, such as alcohol or nicotine from smoking, increase the risk of developing ADHD.

Prevalence
As of 2016,  6.1 million children were diagnosed with ADHD.

Prevention
No known prevention available.

Characteristics
Characteristics of ADHD include:
- Inattention: Short attention span for age (difficulty sustaining attention) difficulty listening to others.
-Impulsivity: often interrupts others
-Hyperactivity: Children with ADHD seem to be in constant motion; runs or climbs, at times with no apparent goal except motion.

Impact on Academic Performance
Students with ADHD have issues focusing, managing distractions, and processing and retaining information. Students who are affected by ADHD often have a hard time with math because their memory is not very strong and blocking out external stimuli is a struggle. Students with ADHD do not have strong executive function skills, which significantly affects their performance in school. Impulsivity causes students with ADHD to rush through schoolwork.

Impact on Social and Behavioral Progress
When children with ADHD enter a social setting, they may have a hard time sharing, taking turns, listening, and picking up on social cues. They often become bored, distracted, or check-out of the conversation. Students with ADHD may have a hard time managing their emotions when interacting with their peers.

Assessment
There's no single test to diagnose ADHD. Instead, doctors rely on several things, including: Interviews with the parents, relatives, teachers, or other adults. Observations can also be involved in diagnosing ADHD.

Instructional Approaches
When students have ADHD, teachers should focus on short-term goals. Long term goals and assignments can be overwhelming. Effective teachers reward work, play music, teach students about the brain, allow them time to calm down, and include mindfulness activities.

Assistive Technology/ Additional Resources
Effective assistive technology and resources include schedules, reminder devices, speech to text/word prediction, audiobooks, and talking calculators.

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IDEA Definition
Specific learning disability is defined as 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.

Etiology
An illness or injury during or after birth may cause learning disabilities. Other possible factors could be drug or alcohol consumption during pregnancy, physical trauma, poor growth in the uterus, low birth weight, and premature or prolonged labor.

Prevalence
One in five children, or 20 percent, have learning and attention issues. US kids receiving special education services for a learning disability number more than 2.5 to 2.8 million.

Prevention
While some learning disabilities cannot be prevented, one may be able to lower a child's risk of learning disabilities by avoiding all alcohol, tobacco, and recreational drugs before, during and after pregnancy.

Characteristics
Characteristics of learning disabilities include short attention span, poor memory, difficulty following directions, inability to discriminate between/among letters, numbers or sounds, poor reading ability, poor writing ability, and coordination difficulties.

Impact on Academic Performance
Students with learning disabilities exhibit basic reading problems when there is difficulty understanding the relationship between sounds, letters and words. Reading comprehension problems occur when there is an inability to grasp the meaning of words, phrases, and paragraphs. Many students with math learning disabilities demonstrate difficulties in estimating quantities, and associating small quantities, memorizing number facts and developing memory strategies for math processes.  There could be inconsistency in math calculation and sequencing processes.  There could be difficulty comprehending the language in math word problems. Some students with math learning disabilities have difficulties in visual-spatial organization, which may result in confused arrangements of numerals and signs on the page, poor ‘number sense’, specific difficulty with pictorial representations and/or weak understanding of math concepts. Working memory difficulties interfere with math problem-solving, where students must keep a number of items in mind at the same time. Many students with learning disabilities struggle with written output and can find written assignments taxing, unrewarding and perhaps even humiliating.  Sometimes it is not immediately apparent how hard they are struggling, and they may come across as being unmotivated or display their frustration in avoidance behaviors.

Impact on Social and Behavioral Progress
Individuals who have learning disabilities may be less observant in their social environment, may misinterpret the social behavior of others at times, and may not learn as easily from experiences or social “cues” as their friends.

Assessment
Intelligence tests (often called IQ tests) most commonly used to diagnose a learning disability include the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WIPPSI), Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS).

Instructional Approaches
Students with learning disabilities should be taught self-monitoring techniques. (Students set goals to complete assignments and check off each step as they complete problems). Teachers should encourage students to subvocalize while learning.  Working with peers or having a peer tutor has been shown to be effective. Teachers should use cooperative learning techniques to allow students to “reteach” concepts. Teachers should model and teach metacognitive strategies, note-taking skills and self-questioning techniques. Teachers must also provide visual cues and props to reinforce and demonstrate from lectures.  Provide students with a written schedule of classroom routines and timelines. Provide multiple opportunities to practice in different formats. The classroom environment and educational staff must consider changes and accommodations to increase student participation and enhance learning.

Assistive Technology/ Additional Resources
Assistive technology that helps students with learning disabilities includes computer programs and tablet applications that provide text-to-speech, speech-to-text, word prediction capabilities, and graphic organizers.