Learning Disabilities and Eligibility for Vocational Rehabilitation Services: A Chronology of Events

Abstract

Historically, learning disabled (LD) individuals have been excluded from vocational rehabilitation services because of eligibility criteria that did not recognize learning disabilities as a mental or physical disability. Several significant events including the recognition of learning disabilities by the Diagnostic Statistical Manual III of the American Psychiatric Association, the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases, and the California Department of Rehabilitation created an atmosphere of acceptance in the rehabilitation community. After initial efforts to maintain the traditional posture towards learning disabilities in the rewriting of the Rehabilitation Comprehensive Services and Developmental Disabilities Amendments of 1978 (PL 95–602), the Rehabilitation Services Administration yielded to a new conceptualization which will now allow the severely learning disabled (SLD) access to rehabilitation services.