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What the law says

“Autism means a developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, generally evident before age three, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance. Other characteristics often associated with autism are engagement in repetitive activities and stereotyped movements, resistance to environmental change or change in daily routines, and unusual responses to sensory experiences. Autism does not apply if a child’s educational performance is adversely affected primarily because the child has an emotional disturbance.”

What it means

A student's communication style, social interaction, or response to routine and sensory input may look different from same-age peers in ways that affect access to instruction. Onset is generally evident before age three, but a student who develops these characteristics later can still qualify under this category.

What the law says

“Deaf-blindness means concomitant hearing and visual impairments, the combination of which causes such severe communication and other developmental and educational needs that they cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for children with deafness or children with blindness.”

What it means

A student has both a hearing loss and a vision loss occurring together, and the combination, not either loss alone, drives the level of support the student needs to access communication, the environment, and instruction.

What the law says

“Deafness means a hearing impairment that is so severe that the child is impaired in processing linguistic information through hearing, with or without amplification, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.”

What it means

Even with hearing aids, cochlear implants, or other amplification, the student cannot rely on hearing to process spoken language and needs an alternate or supplemented mode of access, such as sign language, captioning, or visual supports.

What the law says

“Emotional disturbance means a condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree that adversely affects a child’s educational performance: (A) An inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors. (B) An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers. (C) Inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances. (D) A general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression. (E) A tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems. Emotional disturbance includes schizophrenia. The term does not apply to children who are socially maladjusted, unless it is determined that they have an emotional disturbance.”

What it means

A student shows one or more of the five characteristics listed in the regulation, over time and to a marked degree, and it adversely affects their ability to access instruction. Social maladjustment alone does not qualify a student for this category.

What the law says

“Hearing impairment means an impairment in hearing, whether permanent or fluctuating, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance but that is not included under the definition of deafness in this section.”

What it means

The student has a permanent or fluctuating hearing loss, mild to severe, that gets in the way of accessing spoken instruction, but the student can still process at least some linguistic information through hearing, with or without amplification.

What the law says

“Intellectual disability means significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning, existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.”

What it means

The student's general intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior (daily living, social, and practical skills) are both significantly below what is typical for their age, and this combination began during childhood or adolescence, not later in life.

What the law says

“Multiple disabilities means concomitant impairments (such as intellectual disability-blindness or intellectual disability-orthopedic impairment), the combination of which causes such severe educational needs that they cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for one of the impairments. Multiple disabilities does not include deaf-blindness.”

What it means

A student has two or more disabilities at once (for example, intellectual disability and a physical impairment) where a program built for only one of those disabilities could not meet the student's full educational needs. Deaf-blindness is excluded because it has its own category.

What the law says

“Orthopedic impairment means a severe orthopedic impairment that adversely affects a child’s educational performance. The term includes impairments caused by a congenital anomaly, impairments caused by disease (e.g., poliomyelitis, bone tuberculosis), and impairments from other causes (e.g., cerebral palsy, amputations, and fractures or burns that cause contractures).”

What it means

The student has a significant physical impairment, whatever its origin, that limits movement, strength, or motor function in a way that affects educational performance, not just physical activity.

What the law says

“Other health impairment means having limited strength, vitality, or alertness, including a heightened alertness to environmental stimuli, that results in limited alertness with respect to the educational environment, that is due to chronic or acute health problems such as asthma, attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, diabetes, epilepsy, a heart condition, hemophilia, lead poisoning, leukemia, nephritis, rheumatic fever, sickle cell anemia, and Tourette syndrome, and adversely affects a child’s educational performance.”

What it means

A diagnosed health condition is reducing the student's strength, energy, or attention to classroom demands in a way that adversely affects learning. The regulation names several examples, and the list is illustrative, not exhaustive.

What the law says

“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, that may manifest itself in the imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations, including conditions such as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. The term does not include learning problems that are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities, of intellectual disability, of emotional disturbance, or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.”

What it means

The student has a disorder in how the brain processes language, spoken or written, that shows up as an unexpected gap between ability and performance in listening, speaking, reading, writing, spelling, or math, and that gap is not better explained by another disability or by disadvantage.

What the law says

“Speech or language impairment means a communication disorder, such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment, or a voice impairment, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.”

What it means

The student has a diagnosed communication disorder (articulation, fluency, language, or voice) that is significant enough to adversely affect access to instruction or social participation at school.

What the law says

“Traumatic brain injury means an acquired injury to the brain caused by an external physical force, resulting in total or partial functional disability or psychosocial impairment, or both, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance. Traumatic brain injury applies to open or closed head injuries resulting in impairments in one or more areas, such as cognition; language; memory; attention; reasoning; abstract thinking; judgment; problem-solving; sensory, perceptual, and motor abilities; psychosocial behavior; physical functions; information processing; and speech. Traumatic brain injury does not apply to brain injuries that are congenital or degenerative, or to brain injuries induced by birth trauma.”

What it means

The student sustained an injury to the brain from an outside physical force (a fall, a collision, an impact), and it is now affecting one or more areas such as memory, attention, reasoning, or physical or social functioning in a way that impacts school performance.

What the law says

“Visual impairment including blindness means an impairment in vision that, even with correction, adversely affects a child’s educational performance. The term includes both partial sight and blindness.”

What it means

Even with the best available correction, the student's vision limits access to print, the physical environment, or visual instruction enough to affect educational performance.

The first link and the foundation everything else is built on. It answers one question: where is this student right now, academically and functionally? Every goal, service, and support that follows has to trace back to a need named here.

What the law says

“A statement of the child's present levels of academic achievement and functional performance, including— (i) How the child's disability affects the child's involvement and progress in the general education curriculum (i.e., the same curriculum as for nondisabled children); or (ii) For preschool children, as appropriate, how the disability affects the child's participation in appropriate activities.”

What it means

The IEP must describe, in specific and measurable terms, how the student is currently performing and connect that performance directly to how the disability affects access to the general education curriculum (or, for preschoolers, participation in age-appropriate activities). A generic description of a diagnosis is not a present levels statement.

Annual goals exist to answer the needs the present levels statement just named. A goal that cannot be traced back to a specific present levels need is disconnected from the thread, no matter how well the goal itself is written.

What the law says

“A statement of measurable annual goals, including academic and functional goals designed to— (A) Meet the child's needs that result from the child's disability to enable the child to be involved in and make progress in the general education curriculum; and (B) Meet each of the child's other educational needs that result from the child's disability. For children with disabilities who take alternate assessments aligned to alternate academic achievement standards, a description of benchmarks or short-term objectives.”

What it means

Each annual goal must be written so progress can be measured, and it must map to a need described in the present levels statement, whether that need is about accessing the general curriculum or about another disability-related need such as behavior, communication, or self-care.

This link keeps the thread alive after the IEP meeting ends. If a goal cannot be measured the way this section describes, the goal was not written in a measurable way to begin with.

What the law says

“A description of— (i) How the child's progress toward meeting the annual goals described in paragraph (a)(2) of this section will be measured; and (ii) When periodic reports on the progress the child is making toward meeting the annual goals (such as through the use of quarterly or other periodic reports, concurrent with the issuance of report cards) will be provided.”

What it means

The IEP must state the specific method that will be used to measure progress toward each goal and how often parents will be told how their child is doing, at least as often as report cards go home to families of nondisabled peers.

This is where the IEP commits to what the school will actually do. Every service and support listed here should exist because it helps the student reach a specific annual goal or access the general education curriculum.

What the law says

“A statement of the special education and related services and supplementary aids and services, based on peer-reviewed research to the extent practicable, to be provided to the child, or on behalf of the child, and a statement of the program modifications or supports for school personnel that will be provided to enable the child— (i) To advance appropriately toward attaining the annual goals; (ii) To be involved in and make progress in the general education curriculum in accordance with paragraph (a)(1) of this section, and to participate in extracurricular and other nonacademic activities; and (iii) To be educated and participate with other children with disabilities and nondisabled children in the activities described in this section.”

What it means

The IEP must name the specific special education instruction, related services, supplementary aids and services, and any supports or program modifications for staff, and connect each one to helping the child progress toward goals, access the general curriculum, and participate alongside peers.

This is where the IEP has to justify itself against IDEA's least restrictive environment principle. It connects directly back to the services just listed. The IEP must explain any time those services pull the student out of the regular class or regular activities, and why.

What the law says

“An explanation of the extent, if any, to which the child will not participate with nondisabled children in the regular class and in the activities described in paragraph (a)(4) of this section.”

What it means

If the services and supports in the IEP mean the student will be removed from the regular classroom or regular activities for any part of the day, the IEP has to say so explicitly and explain why, driven by the student's needs rather than by convenience, staffing, or how a program happens to be organized.

This link connects the IEP to how the student's learning is measured at the system level. Any accommodation named here should be consistent with what the student already uses for instruction, so the assessment measures the same skills the rest of the IEP is building.

What the law says

“(i) A statement of any individual appropriate accommodations that are necessary to measure the academic achievement and functional performance of the child on State and districtwide assessments consistent with section 612(a)(16) of the Act; and (ii) If the IEP Team determines that the child must take an alternate assessment instead of a particular regular State or districtwide assessment of student achievement, a statement of why— (A) The child cannot participate in the regular assessment; and (B) The particular alternate assessment selected is appropriate for the child.”

What it means

Students with disabilities take part in state and districtwide assessments like their peers. The IEP team decides whether the student needs accommodations to access the regular assessment or, in limited cases, needs an alternate assessment instead, and must document why.

The final link, and where the IEP becomes enforceable. A service with no start date, frequency, location, or duration is a promise with no way to check whether it was kept, which is where implementation disputes tend to start.

What the law says

“The projected date for the beginning of the services and modifications described in paragraph (a)(4) of this section, and the anticipated frequency, location, and duration of those services and modifications.”

What it means

For every service and modification listed elsewhere in the IEP, the document must state when it starts, how often it happens, where it happens, and how long it is expected to continue. This is the detail that turns the rest of the IEP into a commitment the school can be held to.