• Disability is mild and not discovered prior to child entering school
• Hard to determine a causal factor for the disability
• Students look just like all of the other children
• Low self-esteem

• Not highly interested in academics
• Need concepts presented concretely not abstractly
• Not good listeners
• Achieve below grade level
• Poor skills - verbally and in writing
• Prefer to learn with right-brain type activities
• Need to be actively involved in the learning process - not passively
• Teachers focus on the child’s inability and overlook areas of talent
• Would rather receive special education services in their regular classroom
• Tend to drop out of school more frequently than students without disabilities
• Live up to the teacher’s expectations
• Must have work modified in the regular classroom
• Easily distracted

• Don’t always work cooperatively in groups
• Able to function more normally when out of school
• Want approval from adults
• Difficulty locating and keeping jobs when they are finished with school
• Fall into stereotypical groups formed by others
• Act-out behaviorally

4. How does serving students in special education under IDEA compare with providing protections given by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act for students with disabilities who are not eligible for special education?

Under IDEA, there are 2 criteria which must be met in order for a student to receive Special Education Services. These two areas are:

1. Student must meet qualifications (under federal guidelines) for one of the specific categories/labels.
2. Student must present the NEED for special education services because of this said disability.

The identification of students with specific disabilities must follow certain procedural safeguards under IDEA. They include:

• Identification of learning problem
• Pre-referral intervention
• Referral
• Evaluation
• Eligibility and classification
• Development of IEP
• Placement
• Reevaluation

Under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, students who DO NOT qualify for Special Education services are protected. These students include:

1. Any student who has a physical or mental impairment which substantially limits one or more of such person’s major life activities.
2. Any student who has a record of such an impairment.
3. Any student who is regarded as having such an impairment.
4. The student must also be "otherwise qualified" - he/she must be able to meet the requirements of a certain program regardless of his or her disability.

Under Section 504, there are no set procedural guidelines to protect the system. However, the following must be adhered to: "504 requires schools not to discriminate and to provide reasonable accommodations ... for students who have disabilities, but who do not meet the eligibility criteria for special education..."

7. Who are the special populations at-risk of educational and school failure? Describe the 2 main groups of students.

• Maternal endocrine disorders
• Maternal-fetal bloody type incompatibilities
• Maternal age, reproductive readiness, and efficiency
• Maternal cigarette smoking

• Maternal drug and alcohol abuse
• Rubella
• Radiation Exposure
• Anoxia
• Accidents
• Malnutrition
• Genetics
• Glucose metabolism

• Physical safety of the child, including: difficult delivery, early injury or illness, falls or accidents.
• Nutrition during pregnancy and after birth.
• Toxins such as: pollution, lead poisoning, natural gas exposure.
• Language and sensory deprivation including failure to allow children to interact with their surrounding environment.
• Emotional and psychological influences such as: home life, lack of bonding, child abuse, etc...
• Inadequate education, such as: poor instructional programs for children who learn in a different way, lack of developing re-requisite skills prior to grade advancement.

8. In which instructional settings are students with mild intellectual, learning, and behavioral disabilities primarily taught?

Students with mild disabilities, regardless of the exceptionality, are most likely to be served in a regular education classroom with resource assistance. There are exceptions to every scenario, but the majority of students with mild disabilities are serviced in this manner. Students who fall into this category make up the largest percentage of all students being serviced in the special education program nationwide. The majority of these students are served only during their school years, and some of these students have unreliable test results upon which they were labeled.