Individuals With Disabilities Education Act Quotes

In the United States, toddlers and preschoolers who might have a physical, sensory, cognitive, or emotional disability are guaranteed the right to a professional assessment and educational services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

Visual impairment including blindness is defined in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA 2004, PL 108–446) as an impairment in vision that, even with correction, adversely affects an individual’s educational performance. The term includes both visual impairments and blindness. Educational services for students with visual impairments are determined by variations of the definition specified in IDEA. This definition encompasses students with a wide range of visual impairments, who may vary significantly in their visual abilities.

The term deaf is often overused and misunderstood, and may be applied inappropriately to describe the various types of hearing loss. It can be defined as referring to those for whom the sense of hearing is nonfunctional for the ordinary purposes of life. IDEA 2004 (the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, or PL 108–446) describes deafness as a hearing loss that adversely affects educational performance and is so severe that the child is impaired in processing linguistic information (communication) through hearing, with or without amplification (hearing aids). The term Deaf, used with a capital D, refers to those individuals who want to be identified with Deaf culture. It is inappropriate and misleading to use the term deaf in reference to any hearing loss that is mild or moderate in degree.