Legal Definition of Learning Disability ((Individuals with Disabilities Education Act-IDEA):
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, which may manifest itself in an IMPERFECT ABILITY to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations. The term includes such conditions as perceptual handicaps, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. The term does not include children who have problems that are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities, or mental retardation, emotional disturbance, or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.
The above, federal definition leaves key issues to the discretion of the individual states. There are two main ways of defining IMPERFECT ABILITY:
- significant discrepancy between intellectual ability and at least one achievement area. Significant most often is operationalized in terms of a statistical, probability model that places achievement below what would be predicted by ability, usually 1.5 standard deviations.
- regression analysis that controls statistically for IQ. This approach intends to "correct" for the increased probability of finding a discrepancy when IQ is high and the decreased probability of finding a discrepancy when the IQ is low.
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Determining and Maintaining Eligibility
- original identification is made according to the state regulations which must not violate the federal law. In nearly all states there is a provision for clinical judgment, i.e., the child study team, including the parents, can judge that a child has a learning disability even when the statistically based definition is not met.
- some states take the position that there must be an additional criterion met, that the student is doing poorly in the general curriculum. How well a student is doing in class is most often determined by grades. This opens the door for extremely subjective criteria. Some teachers will give adequate to strong grades when they know a student is trying, when the student is improving or for any number of reasons. Some curricula are more challenging than others. Some teachers are more demanding than others.
- we have not been able to find legal criteria for determining whether a student remains eligible for identification or services. It is often assumed that if an ability-achievement discrepancy no longer exists, the student loses eligibility. However, there is neither theoretical nor legal foundation for this.
- as a student develops and the curriculum becomes more challenging, the area(s) in which a learning disability manifests could change.
- IDEA does not specify exit criteria
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