• Penny Duarte

    Member
    10 February 2023 at 16 h 28 min

    This is a unique category and one that I don’t use often. In order for a student to qualify for Multiple Disabilities, they need to meet eligibility under two significant categories such as ID and Blindness. Then the second part is that a program designed for one of the impairments can not accommodate for the students needs. The best example is a student with ID and Blindness. I have mod-severe day classes on my campus that can meet the needs of students in intellectual disabilities, but these day classes are not designed to meet the needs of a student that is blind. In this situation, the student could meet eligibility under Multiple Disabilities because those two disabilities together create such severe educational needs that a program (such as the mod-severe program on my site) is not able to accommodate to meet the needs of the student. The other example of ID and OI is a little different because the mod-severe programs in my district can accommodate and meet the needs of student with both ID and OI, so I typically wouldn’t qualify a student under Multiple Disabilities in my district for these two areas. I have not come across a student with ID and OI in which his/her needs couldn’t be addressed by our mod-severe program. Hope this helps!