State Variation Regarding Other Health Impairment Eligibility Criteria for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Abstract

The special education eligibility category that has come to be most commonly associated with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in recent years is Other Health Impairment (OHI). However, the eligibility criteria for the OHI disability category have been criticized for being especially vague, given that the disability category incorporates a wide range of health impairments without providing any additional specificity. Because states have the latitude to utilize more specific eligibility criteria than what is provided at the federal level, the purpose of the current study was to review state-level special education eligibility criteria for OHI, with particular interest in identifying the degree to which eligibility guidance exists specific to students with ADHD and the extent to which this guidance varies across states. Results suggested that wide state variation exists regarding eligibility guidance, with 22% of states utilizing the federal definition and only 14% of states providing elaboration regarding all three components of the federal definition. Whereas it was most common for states to provide additional guidance surrounding what is needed to establish that a student has a health impairment, less than half of states provided specific guidance surrounding the other two components of the federal definition. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.