Special ed students fall into 10 categories

When Jim Golden took a job with Sisters schools nine years ago, the system had five teachers assigned to special education — including him. Elementary School Principal Tim Comfort, who is trained in the field, was in charge of the district’s program.

Now Golden, who is vice principal of the high school, is also the district director of special education. The teaching staff for this purpose still numbers five. But there are more paraprofessionals, people who work with the students at the direction of the certified teachers.

“Across the district I have 12 or 13 of these folks,” Golden says.

At a training session for the paraprofessionals last October, Golden explained the legal background of special education (see story page 3). Among other things, he provided a list of the “categorical disabilities recognized by the State of Oregon.”

• Learning Disabled: Pertains to a host of learning issues that generally impact a student’s ability to read, write or do mathematics.

• Communication Disorder: This generally pertains to issues affecting a person’s speech and language acquisition, development or performance.

• Emotional Disturbance: Affects a person’s ability to interact socially or emotionally in a normal fashion with other people.

• Mental Retardation: Affects a person’s ability to attain normal intelligence. Usually these folks have structural or electrical problems with their brains.

• Other Health Impairment (OHI): This is a catchall category that includes folks who have ADHD, ADD or some medical or emotional problems.

• Orthopedic Impairment: This includes people who have cerebral palsy, para- and quadriplegic folks.

• Deaf/Hard of Hearing.

• Blind/Visually Impaired.

• Autism Spectrum Disorder: This is a definition that includes people who have social, emotional and communication issues. The condition manifests itself in a variety of manners.

• Traumatic Brain Injury.