Students with Disabilities: Characteristics and Needs
Domain 1: Students with Disabilities - Characteristics and Needs
This domain tests whether you can recognize disability-related learning and behavioral profiles, distinguish IDEA categories from medical or civil-rights labels, and connect characteristics to instructional implications.
Core rules and concepts
- IDEA lists 13 disability categories. High-incidence examples include specific learning disability (SLD), speech/language impairment, other health impairment (OHI), emotional disturbance, intellectual disability, and autism. Developmental delay is an optional state category for young children, not one of the 13.
- SLD is a processing/achievement disorder; a severe discrepancy is not required. RTI data or patterns of strengths and weaknesses may support identification. Dyslexia is an SLD, not a separate IDEA category.
- ADHD is usually OHI when it limits alertness, strength, or vitality; it is not its own IDEA category. A 504 plan may provide accommodations without specialized instruction.
- Autism affects social communication and restricted/repetitive behavior; intellectual disability involves significantly subaverage intellectual functioning plus adaptive deficits; emotional disturbance requires marked duration/severity and educational impact.
- Characteristics guide supports: phonological deficits call for explicit decoding; executive-function deficits call for chunking and checklists; sensory loss calls for accessible materials; adaptive deficits call for functional and community instruction.
Worked example
A third grader reads slowly, guesses at multisyllabic words, and has average math. Screening shows weak phonemic awareness; intervention data show low growth. The team should consider SLD in reading, not OHI, and should not wait for a large IQ–achievement gap. Evaluation should include processing and achievement measures plus classroom data; the IEP then targets decoding and fluency.
Traps
- Equating ADHD or dyslexia with standalone IDEA categories.
- Inferring intellectual disability from poor test performance alone; adaptive behavior is required.
- Confusing 504 accommodations with IEP specialized instruction.