• Mild –visual acuity worse than 6/12 to 6/18
• Moderate –visual acuity worse than 6/18 to 6/60
• Severe –visual acuity worse than 6/60 to 3/60
• Blindness –visual acuity worse than 3/60

• Near visual acuity worse than N6 or M.08 at 40cm.

• ^{not be able to see objects at a distance, like on a whiteboard or blackboard}
• ^{having trouble reading (or learning to read) and participating in class}
• ^{not be able to focus on objects or follow them, may squint often and rub their eyes a lot, have chronic eye redness or sensitivity to light}
• ^{bump into things often}
• ^{not being able to see at all}

• ^{Injury to the eyes}
• ^{Inherited conditions of blindness and vision impairment}
• ^{Infections of the eyes} 
• ^{Amblyopia- Lazy eye}
• ^Cataract
• ^{Diabetic retinopathy}
• ^Glaucoma
• ^{Age related Macular degeneration}
• ^{AIDS related visual impairment}
• ^{Cancer of the eye}

• Students with vision impairment may access information in a variety of ways, for example Braille, audio-tape, or enlarged print. Braille readers cannot skim read and may take up to three times as long as other students to read a text. Students with some vision may be large-print readers. Many will be unable to read examination questions and handouts in standard print or read their own handwriting when answering examination questions.  They may also be unable to take their own notes. Extra time is needed to carry out some tasks, such as locating words in a text when shifting from one reading medium to another.
• Students who need information put into alternative formats must wait, often up to six to eight weeks, for the material to be produced for them. This means that they will often fall behind other students in the class.
• Students with vision impairment may feel isolated in the learning environment, which can  have an impact on learning.
• Headaches often result from eyestrain. This may reduce considerably the study time available to these students.
• Participation and interaction in tutorials may be limited. It is difficult for students who cannot see the body language and interactions of others to feel comfortable about participating. Judging when it is appropriate to interrupt or to take a turn in discussion is particularly difficult.

• Provide a variety of hands-on, meaningful experiences.  Children learn best through real-world experiences in which they can have a direct, first-hand understanding of something and not just a verbal explanation.
• Talk about these experiences with the child beforehand, as well as while the experience is happening, and afterwards when you get home or with other people.  Use words to label objects, people, and experiences that are appropriate to the child’s developmental level.
• Offer many opportunities for the child to explore and interact with a wide range of materials and real objects.  This helps to compare size, shape, texture and other attributes, while also helping the child to develop basic concepts and an understanding of same and different.
• Encourage daily purposeful, fun movement activities to build gross motor and fine motor abilities. These are necessary precursors for many life skills, including the tactile discrimination needed for functional use of object and tactile symbols or braille. 
• Support the child to interact with others in safe and comfortable environments.  Playful experiences and exposure to others with reciprocal give and take helps to build the foundation for communication and social development. 
• Create a literacy-rich environment, in which the child is aware that others are reading and writing.
• Provide accessible labels in the environment on the child’s chair, table, cubby and any location where print labels are found.  These should be in the child’s preferred format (large print, braille, objects, tactile symbols).  At home, label rooms in the house, light switches, controls on appliances, and other places where print is found. 
• Read aloud using stories and books that are interesting and appropriate for the child. Use real objects and personal experiences to increase understanding.  Link to story boxes
• Do not avoid "sighted" words

• Determine what medium is best for an individual child through the Learning Media Assessment (LMA).  This may be braille, print, dual media, auditory strategies, objects, symbols, or some combination.
• Provide books and literacy tools in a format that is accessible to the child.
• Paper strategies, including print, magnification and braille; E-text strategies, including tracking, auditory support and refreshable braille; Auditory strategies, including readers and auditory books.

• Audiotaped, Brailed, or electronically formatted lecture notes, handouts, and texts
• Verbal descriptions of visual aids
• Raised-line drawings and tactile models of graphic materials
• Braille lab signs and equipment labels; auditory lab warning signals
• Adaptive lab equipment ( i.e. talking thermometers )
• Computer with optical character reader, voice output, Braille screen display and printer output

• daily living skills, such as getting dressed, going to the bathroom, and feeding one's self;
• communication skills, such as understanding what is said and being able to answer;
• social skills with peers, family members, adults, and others.

• difficulty understanding new information
• difficulties with communication and social skills
• slow cognitive processing time
• difficulty in the sequential processing of information
• difficulties comprehending abstract concepts.

• sit up, crawl, or walk later than other children;
• learn to talk later, or have trouble speaking,
• find it hard to remember things,
• not understand how to pay for things,
• have trouble understanding social rules,
• have trouble seeing the consequences of their actions,
• have trouble solving problems, and/or
• have trouble thinking logically.

• Genetic conditions. Sometimes an intellectual disability is caused by abnormal genes inherited from parents, errors when genes combine, or other reasons. Examples of genetic conditions are Down syndrome, fragile X syndrome, and phenylketonuria (PKU).
• Problems during pregnancy. Intellectual disabilities can result when the baby does not develop inside the mother properly. For example, there may be a problem with the way the baby's cells divide as it grows. A woman who drinks alcohol or gets an infection like rubella during pregnancy may also have a baby with intellectual disabilities.
• Problems at birth. If a baby has problems during labor and birth, such as not getting enough oxygen, they may have an intellectual disability.
• Health problems. Diseases like whooping cough, the measles, or meningitis can cause intellectual disabilities.  This can also be caused by extreme malnutrition (not eating right), not getting enough medical care, or by being exposed to poisons like lead or mercury. (The Office of Special Education Programs, 2022).

• Provide an outline of what will be taught - highlight key concepts and provide opportunities to practice new skills and concepts.
• Provide reading lists well before the start of a course so that reading can begin early.
• Consider tailoring reading lists and provide guidance to key texts. Allow work to be completed on an in-depth study of a few texts rather than a broad study of many.
• Whenever you are introducing procedures or processes or giving directions, for example in a laboratory or computing exercise, ensure that stages or sequences are made clear and are explained in verbal as well as written form.
• Students may benefit from using assistive technology.
• Use as many verbal descriptions as possible to supplement material presented on blackboard or overhead
• Use clear, succinct, straightforward language.
• Reinforce learning by using real-life examples and environments.
• Present information in a range of formats – handouts, worksheets, overheads, videos – to meet a diversity of learning styles.
• Use a variety of teaching methods so that students are not constrained by needing to acquire information by reading only. Where possible, present material diagrammatically - in lists, flow charts, concept maps etc.
• Keep diagrams uncluttered and use color wherever appropriate to distinguish and highlight.
• Ensure that lists of technical/professional jargon which students will need to learn are available early in the course.
• Recording lectures will assist those students who have handwriting or coordination problems and those who write slowly as well as those who have a tendency to mishear or misquote.
• Students will be more likely to follow correctly the sequence of material in a lecture if they are able to listen to the material more than once.
• Wherever possible, ensure that key statements and instructions are repeated or highlighted in some way.
• One-to-one tutoring in subjects may be important; this can include peer tutoring.
• Students may benefit from having oral rather than written feedback on their written assignments.
• It may be helpful for students with intellectual disability to have an individual orientation to laboratory equipment or computers to minimize anxiety.
• Allow extensions to assignment deadlines
• Use technology to record students work, e.g. digital photography, tape and video.
• Students may take longer to organize thoughts and sequence material. They will benefit from discussing their outlines, with particular attention being paid to appropriate relationships and connections between points.
• Encourage the student to submit an early draft of assignments to allow the opportunity for feedback to the student as a formative process.
• Students with an intellectual disability will need extra time in an examination for reading and analyzing questions and for planning their answers. 
• Some students will request that examination questions be read to them. Some students may prefer to dictate their answers to a scribe. They will need a venue which is quiet and distraction-free.
• Keep short your written examination instructions and sentences within examination questions. Questions using bullet points, lists or distinct parts are more likely to be correctly interpreted.
• Because students with intellectual  disability find it difficult to read multiple choice questions in a way that allows them to appreciate subtle changes in the arrangement of words, short answer questions will be a better test of their knowledge.
• Students may benefit from an exam timetable that features a number of days between exams to assist in exam preparation.
• Many students with intellectual disability are chronic misspellers and use dictionaries only with great difficulty.

• feeling like speech and other sounds are quiet or muffled
• having trouble hearing other people, particularly in noisy surroundings or when more than one person is speaking
• frequently needing to ask others to repeat themselves or to speak more loudly or slowly
• having to turn the volume up on your TV or headphones

• having unclear speech or talking very loudly
• often replying with “huh?” or “what?”
• not responding to or following directions
• a delay in speech development
• turning up the volume too high on the TV or headphones

• not being startled by a loud noise
• only noticing you when they see you and not when you say their name
• appearing to hear some sounds but not others
• not responding to or turning toward a sound source after they’ve reached 6 months of age
• not saying simple single words by 1 year of age

1. It causes a delay in the development of receptive and expressive communication skills (speech and language).
2. The language deficit causes learning problems that result in reduced academic achievement.
3. Communication difficulties often lead to social isolation and poor self-concept.
4. It may have an impact on vocational choices.

• Children with hearing loss have difficulty with all areas of academic achievement, especially reading and mathematical concepts.
• Children with mild to moderate hearing losses, on average, achieve one to four grade levels lower than their peers with normal hearing, unless appropriate management occurs.
• Children with severe to profound hearing loss usually achieve skills no higher than the third- or fourth-grade level, unless appropriate educational intervention occurs early.
• The gap in academic achievement between children with normal hearing and those with hearing loss usually widens as they progress through school.
• The level of achievement is related to parental involvement and the quantity, quality, and timing of the support services children receive.

• Limited communication or speech impairment
• Problems with physical mobility
• Cognitive impairments

• Difficulty in basic physical mobility
• May experience fine-motor deficits that can cause penmanship problems
• May have slow clerical speed.
• May tend to forget skills through disuse
• May have trouble generalizing skills from one situation to another
• May lack high-level thinking and comprehension skills
• May have poor problem-solving skills
• Ability to engage in abstract thinking is limited
• May be a poor test taker due to limiting factors of the disabilities
• May have difficulty locating the direction of the sound
• May have speech that is characterized by substitution, omissions
• May have difficulty learning about objects and object relationships
• May lack maturity in establishing career goals
• May face problems in socializing with peers

• Requires a lot of patience with individuals with multiple disabilities.
• Basic knowledge of the individual's disabilities.
• Effort is needed to ensure safety. Compassion is needed

The Choice of Educational Settings: The Pros and Cons of Mainstreaming Children With Intellectual Disabilities (n.a.). MentalHelp.net. Retrieved from: https://www.mentalhelp.net/intellectual-disabilities/educational-settings-the-pros-and-cons/

• Stiff muscles (spasticity)
• Uncontrollable movements (dyskinesia)
• Poor balance and coordination (ataxia)

• Stiff muscles and exaggerated reflexes (spasticity)
• Variations in muscle tone, such as being either too stiff or too floppy
• Stiff muscles with normal reflexes (rigidity)
• Lack of balance and muscle coordination (ataxia)
• Tremors or jerky involuntary movements
• Slow, writhing movements
• Favoring one side of the body, such as only reaching with one hand or dragging a leg while crawling
• Difficulty walking, such as walking on toes, a crouched gait, a scissors-like gait with knees crossing, a wide gait or an asymmetrical gait
• Difficulty with fine motor skills, such as buttoning clothes or picking up utensils

• Delays in speech development
• Difficulty speaking
• Difficulty with sucking, chewing or eating
• Excessive drooling or problems with swallowing

• Delays in reaching motor skills milestones, such as sitting up or crawling
• Learning difficulties
• Cognitive / Intellectual deficits 
• Delayed growth, resulting in smaller size than would be expected

• Seizures (epilepsy)
• Difficulty hearing
• Problems with vision and abnormal eye movements
• Abnormal touch or pain sensations
• Bladder and bowel problems, including constipation and urinary incontinence
• Mental health conditions, such as emotional disorders and behavioral problems

• Talk about and celebrate differences. Students with CP want to be accepted like everyone else. But sometimes they’re targeted by others who see them as “different.” Be mindful of bullying, and keep a zero-tolerance policy for that behavior.
• Regularly check in with the student with CP to help them achieve set goals. Once they’ve reached it, set a new one. 
• A team of professionals with disability specific knowledge regarding CP and the functional impact of the disability will be invaluable in supporting the individual needs of each student. Check in with them on how you can support the child with CP in your classroom. As CP presents itself in unique ways in each person, professionals might help you pinpoint how you can support the specific student in your class. 
• Provide copies of notes or use student writers if handwriting is difficult.
• Provide clear expectations, consistency, structure and routine for the entire class. Rules should be specific, direct, written down and applied consistently.
• If the student uses an alternative form of communication, like a communication book or device, make sure it is available to him or her at recess and lunchtime. Teach peers how interact with the student using the communication device or book.
• Be aware of physical considerations during practical tasks and provide subtle support.
• Have variety when teaching (UDL approach). Variety is especially important for a child with cerebral palsy who may struggle in ways other children do not. Use direct instruction, small group discussions, hands-on experimentation, quiet reading, videos and computer learning, and all types of strategies to reach each child.

• Keep walkways open. Make your classroom easy to move through and free of obstacles. Students may need extra help moving around or reaching things. 
• Be aware of seating arrangements, and adjust if they aren’t working. Kids with CP who are self-conscious of uncontrolled movements or other differences may want to sit in the back or away from others. Try to put kids near other students who encourage them to be involved in activities.
• Give extra time, if needed (this should also be in the ILP). Some kids may need more time to travel between classes, complete assignments or activities, and take tests. They might need extra bathroom breaks too. Talk to the student and parent to find out what’s best. To help with comprehending and processing instructions, allow the student more time with transitions and tasks. Understand that students with CP are prone to anxiety and unrealistic time limits are likely to heighten it.
• To help students who struggle with handwriting, consider technological solutions such as an eye-gaze computer navigation system or speech-to-text, particularly if the focus of the lesson is not on handwriting.
• Specialised seating may be required if student uses a wheelchair. Additionally, "comfortable" seating might be necessary if the student is struggle with posture control. Potentially a "break" area, where the student can rest in a bean bag chair. 

• Be prepared for medical emergencies by planning ahead with parents. Know what to do and who to call if a student with CP has a medical emergency or event, like a seizure. 
• Schedule bathroom breaks or allow student to leave class just prior to other students to avoid the rush. There is a potential for a toileting accident, make sure you are aware of what to do and who to contact for help in the school if this happens (typically health office).