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What Is Meant By "Severe Disabilities"

The classifications of severe handicaps, severe/profound impairments, or multiple disabilities are less than precise. Children so labeled present a complex picture: they might include those with diagnoses of mental retardation, schizophrenia, autism, or cerebral palsy. Further behavioral, sensory, or orthopedic problems may also be involved.

Mental retardation may be the central and single largest category represented in severe disabilities. The more severe the retardation, the greater is the chance for concomitant problems.

Children with severe disabilities used to be easily defined: they were those children excluded from school on the basis of extensive mental, physical, and/or behavioral impairments that were considered permanent in nature.

More recent efforts to define the population have emphasized the educational considerations rather than static deficiencies. For some students, severe disability may be a transitory condition during which the individual requires frequent care, supervision, and/or assistance.

The severely handicapped individual is one whose ability to provide for his or her own basic life sustaining and safety needs is so limited, relative to the proficiency expected on the basis of chronological age, that it could pose a serious threat to his or her survival.

What Are Some Typical Characteristics Of Individuals With Severe Disabilities?

Severely disabled individuals may exhibit one or more of the following behaviors:

• Self-mutilation.
• Ritualistic behaviors.
• Self-stimulation.
• Failure to attend or relate to others.
• Lack of self-care skills.
• Lack of verbal communication skills.
• Lack of basic physical mobility.

What Are The Educational Implications Of Severe Disabilities?

Students with severe disabilities are now attending local schools. Some have been released from institutions, others from isolation at home, and still others have been identified at birth and served in early intervention programs. Whatever their avenue of approach, their arrival at school brings unique issues to the fore, including:

• The degree and quality of interaction between non disabled and severely disabled students.
• The increasing importance of a multi disciplinary approach with input from occupational, physical, and speech/language therapists; nurses; audiologists; psychologists; social workers; and pediatricians.
• The need for a curriculum grounded in preliminary sensory motor stimulation and subsequent stress on five major areas: motor, self-help, communication, social/interpersonal, and cognitive skills.
• The growing importance of prevocational/vocational training and leisure skills development in the severely disabled student's life as he or she ages.
• The need for arrangements made within the classroom setting to provide for medication, dietary needs, and self-care requirements.
• The use of technological advances, specifically computer applications and electronic communication devices.
• The advent of community living arrangements and the resulting stress on programming for the greatest degree possible of independent living.

Severely disabled individuals do not learn as easily by incidental learning as do less disabled and non disabled persons. Therefore, instruction in even the most basic skills must be carefully structured and planned.