Federal Laws

There are a number of laws that relate to individuals with disabilities. These include state laws and several well known Federal laws. They include many specific provisions, some of which overlap. Three federal laws are particularly relevant to people with diagnosed learning disabilities. Their coverage can summarized in general terms as follows:

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
(known as "IDEA")

The "IDEA" requires that public schools provide a free, appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment to persons with disabilities until high school graduation or age 22, whichever comes first.

The "IDEA" is most often used to obtain special education services for students in elementary and secondary schools.

The Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Section 504
(known as "Section 504" or simply "504")

"Section 504" prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability against an "otherwise qualified individual with a disability" by any entity receiving federal financial assistance. This includes public elementary and secondary schools, and essentially all public and private colleges, and others (such as public employers).

"Section 504" is often by students to obtain appropriate education-related accommodations at colleges and universities and in testing situations. However, "504" applies equally to elementary and secondary schools.

The Americans with Disabilities Act
(known as the "ADA")

The "ADA" prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability by any public or private employer with 15 or more employees against workers or prospective workers. It also prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities by "public accommodations" including private elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, and others.

The "ADA" is widely referred to in a variety of contexts, but its specific provisions are most commonly used by employees with disabilities in seeking to obtain fair treatment from employers.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA")

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA") is the current name of a federal law first passed in 1975. You may be familiar with it by its earlier names: the "Education for All Handicapped Children Act" ("EAHCA"), and "94-142." These laws, and their subsequent revisions are now known as the "IDEA." If you had an individualized education plan, received special tutoring or testing, or attended a special education program provided or paid for by a public school system in elementary, middle, or high school, you may be familiar with some of the provisions of this law.

The IDEA covers students with disabilities until they graduate from high school or, in cases where graduation is delayed, until they reach age 22. Students with diagnosed learning disabilities and attention disorders are among those covered by the law.

Under IDEA, children with disabilities are entitled to receive a free, appropriate public education. Schools must provide services that are individually designed to meet students' special needs for an appropriate education. An individualized education program ("IEP") must be developed for each student with a disability, based upon the results of a comprehensive evaluation.

Children with disabilities must be educated in the "least restrictive" environment. This has been determined to mean placement in the regular classroom to the maximum extent "appropriate" in meeting the identified needs. Schools must provide a continuum of placement options to meet student needs.

IDEA describes a sequence of procedures for identification of students with disabilities, and for providing them with appropriate education. The principal steps in this process are:

Evaluation
An evaluation of a student may be initiated by the student himself, or by a parent, teacher, or other person within the school.

Once the possibility of a disability is raised, the school system must provide for a comprehensive evaluation of the student. A full range of tests must be administered by a multidisciplinary team of trained personnel using testing instruments that accurately reflect the student's actual abilities, including all areas of communication skills and mathematical abilities (oral expression, listening comprehension, written expression, basic reading skills, reading comprehension, mathematical calculation, and mathematical reasoning).

Parents must give written permission for the initial evaluation and must receive a copy of the school's written report. In certain circumstances, parents may be able to obtain at the school's expense an independent evaluation from an examiner who is not employed by the school.

Individualized Education Program
If the evaluation determines that a student has a disability covered by IDEA, the school must annually develop an individualized education program (IEP) for the student. The IEP must include:

• a statement of the student's present performance level;
• a statement of annual educational goals, objectives to meet those goals, and criteria for measuring the achievement of goals and objectives;
• a description of specific educational and related services to be provided;
• the date when services will begin and how long they will last; and
• a statement of services that will be needed to allow a smooth transition after IDEA no longer applies to the student.

While the school system takes primary responsibility for preparing the IEP, the student and parents are entitled to participate in the process and to receive a copy of the IEP.

Placement
Based on the IEP, the school system makes a determination of the appropriate placement for the student. To the maximum extent possible, this must be in a regular classroom setting. However, a school system may choose to place a child in a private facility at school system expense.

Parents must consent to their child's placement. The school system's placement decision must be reviewed every year based on the IEP (which must also be rewritten annually).

Hearing Process
If the parents disagree with the school system's placement decision, they can seek mediation to resolve the dispute or obtain a hearing before an impartial hearing officer hired by the state. While this dispute is being resolved, the child must stay in his current educational placement. The hearing officer's decision may be appealed to a higher level of administrative review or directly to state and then federal court, depending on the state.

In some circumstances, parents who place their children in private schools at their personal expense during the hearing/court process may be entitled to reimbursement of this expense and payment of their attorneys' fees, if they eventually win a judgment that the school system's placement decision was wrong. 

The Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Section 504 ("Section 504")

Section 504 prohibits any entity that receives federal financial assistance from discriminating against people with disabilities. It applies to all government financed institutions like public elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, and almost all private colleges and universities as well. A number of provisions of Section 504 overlap with the IDEA in relation to public schools, and 504 is often used by parents and advocates to insure fair treatment of elementary and secondary school students with disabilities.

However, Section 504 is often used because of its rules about how colleges and universities must respond to the needs of their students with disabilities. Here are some of the key features of Section 504 as they relate to college students with learning disabilities:

Definition of Disability
The definition of what constitutes a disability covered by Section 504 is quite broad. The law prohibits discrimination against individuals who have a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of their major life activities.

"Major life activities" are defined to include learning. Individuals who have been diagnosed as having dyslexia, learning disabilities, or ADD/ADHD are viewed as falling within this definition.

Prohibition Against Pre-Admission Inquiry
Section 504 prohibits a college or university from asking in its admissions process whether you have a disability. You may still want to inform the college of your disability prior to admission in order to determine if it has programs in place that will provide you with appropriate academic support services. However, if you choose to, you may keep your disability confidential.

Responsibility to Identify Needs Rests with the Student
If a student with learning disabilities wishes to receive modifications, s/he must come forward with information documenting her/his disability, indicating how it affects learning, and describing appropriate modifications.

This is an extremely important difference between 504 and the IDEA. Under the IDEA, the school is required to monitor its students to determine if some have disabilities, and to provide evaluations if necessary. Under 504, the college has no such obligation.

Colleges Must Make Modifications in Their Academic Requirements
Colleges must address the needs of students with disabilities by making modifications in academic requirements. Examples of modifications include allowing more time to complete degree requirements, substitution of specific courses required for a degree, and a wide range of classroom modifications ranging from preferential seating to special office hours with the professor.

Requirements That Are "Essential to the Program of Study" Are Exempt From Modifications
Colleges do not have to make modifications to requirements that are essential to the program of instruction. For example, a college could require a student with a math-related disability to complete a statistics course in order to receive a degree in psychology. However, a math requirement might be waived for an art major with a math-related disability.

Colleges Must Modify Exams
Students with disabilities may perform poorly on a traditional exam even though they have an excellent grasp of the material covered. Section 504 requires that colleges ensure that tests evaluate the actual knowledge of students with disabilities. Depending on individual disabilities, this may require modifications in the time provided, the setting (e.g. private room vs. lecture hall), or format (essay vs. multiple choice).

"Individualized Inquiry" Is Required
Under Section 504 the particular needs of students with disabilities must be considered and responded to individually by their college. This makes sense because what constitutes a reasonable modification depends on the nature of the student's particular disability and the demands of the program he/she seeks to pursue.

NOTE: Self-understanding and self-advocacy skills are crucial to obtaining modifications under the provisions of Section 504, because individuals are responsible for bringing their disabilities to the attention of the college in order to receive appropriate modifications. Students must have a full understanding of the nature of their disabilities, specific examples of how their disabilities affect their ability to learn, detailed suggestions on the kinds of modifications that the college can provide that will help them succeed, and documentation which supports their requests.

The Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA")

The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities in several different contexts. Most importantly, it requires employers of 15 or more persons to accommodate the needs of employees with disabilities. It includes additional requirements for physical accessibility in buildings and public transportation.

The ADA also prohibits discrimination based on disability by "places of public accommodation", including private schools, colleges and universities. The public accommodation provision of ADA means that it can be applied to a wide range of institutions. However, since the IDEA has the most detailed regulations concerning children in elementary and secondary schools, and 504 deals most explicitly with students at colleges and universities, the ADA is most often used to ensure fair treatment by employers of employees with disabilities.

Many of the basic definitions and concepts that form the foundation of the ADA are consistent with the provisions of 504. Looking for these parallels will help you understand each law better.

Key information about the ADA in relation to employment of persons with disabilities includes:

Definition of Disability
The definition of disability in the ADA is identical to that in 504. The law prohibits discrimination against an individual who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of such person's major life activities.

"Major life activities" are defined to include learning. Individuals who have been diagnosed as having dyslexia, learning disabilities, or ADD/ADHD are viewed as falling within this definition.

Definition of a"Qualified Individual with a Disability"
Employers are not required by the ADA to make hiring/promotion decisions completely without regard to disabilities. An individual with a disability must be "qualified" for the job. He/She must be able to perform the essential functions of the job. Essential functions are ones that are integral to the job, not peripheral.

For example, an employer is obviously not required to hire a blind person as a taxi driver. A bank would not be violating the ADA if it refused to hire as a teller a person with a math-related learning disability. However, it might not be lawful to refer to his disability in refusing to hire a talented artist with dyslexia who was applying to do design work in the bank's publicity office.

Employers May Not Inquire About a Job Applicant's Disabilities
If you are applying for a job, an employer may not ask you if you have any disabilities that will interfere with your performance. Depending on the circumstances, you may wish to indicate to a prospective employer that you have certain specific needs based on your disability.

Employers Must Use Appropriate Tests to Determine Eligibility for Jobs
As under 504, an employer may not make employment or promotion contingent on a person's performance on a test that doesn't accurately measure the skills he needs to perform a particular job. An employer might be violating the ADA if it refused a position to a dyslexic candidate for a position as a plumber because he did poorly on a timed, written test that included language at a 12th grade reading level.

Employers Must Provide Reasonable Accommodations to Employees with Disabilities
The ADA requires that employers make accommodations and modifications in job conditions to ensure that qualified individuals with disabilities are not discriminated against. These can include providing a variety of electronic equipment, work space modifications, scheduling changes, modifications in training materials, and restructuring of marginal requirement of particular positions.

Employers Do Not Have to Modify Essential Job Functions
Employers are not required to make modifications to the essential functions of a job, or to undertake accommodations that present an "undue hardship" to the business.

What constitutes an undue hardship depends on the size and financial resources of the employer and the cost of the necessary modification. For example, a clothing design studio employing 17 people located on the 2nd floor of a New York City building without an elevator might face an undue hardship if it had to install an elevator to accommodate a physically disabled employee. A major corporation would not face an undue hardship in ensuring physical access to a second floor space in its plant.

The ADA Is Not An Affirmative Action Law
If two candidates for a job or a promotion are equally qualified, an employer has no obligation to hire the one who has a disability.

The ADA Applies to Testing Services and Professional Licensing Boards
Section 504 and ADA have been successfully used to assure that entities which provide formal testing services to colleges, employers, and licensing boards (relating, for example, to fire-fighting, EMT, law) use test instruments and conditions of testing that do not discriminate against persons with disabilities.

For example, licensing exams of all kinds can now be taken untimed in most states by persons who can document that they have a disability that interferes with their speed in taking tests.

What are the most common and useful definitions of learning disabilities?

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