It's not that IDEA does not include dyslexia, or that there are special rules to keep kids from dyslexia out of special education. Dyslexia is a medical diagnosis.
Beckee's correct - dyslexia is a term that's used by the medical profession, but the school district uses other terms to describe challenges. Our ds is dysgraphic and dyspraxic; when I want to research, those are the terms I use that are most helpful in finding information. His diagnoses from his neuropsychologist are "disorder of written expression" and "developmental coordination disorder" - essentially the same things as dysgraphia and dyspraxia, but her profession's terminology. The school district recognizes my ds' challenge with written expression as "Specific Learning Disorder - Written Expression".
There's usually nobody in the school district qualified to diagnose it, and the label itself tells educators nothing that they can use that cannot be tested some other way.
The school district doesn't diagnosis in the way a medical professional does, *but* the early elementary educators I've known do recognize signs of struggling readers and are somewhat able to pick apart different potential challenges. Our school district does a lot of work with supporting children who are learning to read in the early grades because reading as a skill is so very critical to future educational success. Our district also does dyslexia screening using the same tests that I've seen used privately.
As I recall, there is a question that has to be asked in the eligibility meetings for all the eligibility categories. "Does the child need specially designed instruction in order to benefit from a free and appropriate public education (FAPE)?" If the answer to that question is no, the student does not need special education and does not qualify for it.
Everything I understand about IEPs matches what Beckee wrote here, but fwiw, our schools do, when they want to qualify a child, use OHI to qualify for the IEP and then add services which are really targeting other challenges such as reading, writing, organization.
The wrightslaw website does have a copy of a letter written interpreting the updated IDEA guidelines in the case of children who are in gifted programs which can be helpful when advocating for a 2e child - I'm sorry I don't have the link at the moment, but if I recall, it's pretty easy to find if you look through the list of topics on the left side of the homepage - I think it's under "twice-exceptional".
polarbear
