Other Health Impairments

Definition

"Having limited strength, vitality, or alertness due to chronic or acute health problems such as a heart condition, rheumatic fever, asthma, hemophilia, and leukemia, which adversely affect educational environment, that-

(i) 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

       (ii) Adversely affects a child’s educational performance."-IDEA

Causes

The etiology of specific health impairments varies. Most result from infections, genetic factors, environmental influences, prenatal influences, perinatal influences, and postnatal influences. However, they can be grouped into some general areas (Smith, 2004):

• Allergies e.g. Hepatitis
• Heredity e.g. Hemophilia
• Accidents e.g. seizure disorders
• Multiple factors e.g. Epilepsy
• Unknown*
• 
  

Incidence
Roughly 7.6% of students receiving special education are identified as having other health impairments.

Resources
http://nichcy.org/disability/specific/ohi
**http://www.projectidealonline.org/healthImpairments.php
*http://www.naset.org/2278.0.html
http://www.specialeducationbehaviormodification.com/articles/other_health_impairment.html
http://www.napcse.org/exceptionalchildren/otherhealthimpairments/

Teaching Strategies

• Allow extra time for these students to shift from one activity or environment to the next.
• Teach these students specific techniques for organizing their thoughts and materials. Organize the classroom accordingly, and keep all materials in permanent locations for easy access.
• Allow extra time for finishing assignments or for testing.
• For more complex activities, simplify steps to make them more manageable.
• Seat the student close to the teacher and away from any peers that might be distracting.
• Post a daily and weekly schedule that clearly delineates each activity. These schedules can then be used as prompts to direct the student back on task.
• Keep these schedules as consistent as possible, and keep unstructured time at a minimum.

In a more global sense, teaching these students to create their own goals and objectives can help them learn to manage their lives across any number of environments and activities. This process includes the following steps:

• Clearly define your goal.
• Develop objectives to achieve this goal.
• Define the actions necessary to achieve the desired outcome.**