NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
 
BILL NUMBER: A7639A
SPONSOR: Thiele
 
TITLE OF BILL: An act to amend the education law, in relation to the
definition of a student with a disability
 
PURPOSE:
Relates to the definition of a "child with a disability" or "student
with a disability."
 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Section 4401 of the Education Law is amended to determine and define the
disabilities that shall be included under the meaning of "child with a
disability" or "student with a disability." Such disabilities shall
include but not be limited to: Autism; Deafness; Deaf-Blindness;
Emotional Disturbance; Learning Disability; Intellectual Disability;
Multiple Disabilities; Orthopedic Impairment; Other Health Impairments;
Speech or Language Impairment; Traumatic Brain Injury; Visual Impairment
and Dyslexia.
 
JUSTIFICATION:
This legislation places into statute the terms used in the definition of
students with disabilities contained in the Regulations of the Commis-
sioner of Education relating to Special Education and Students with
Disabilities and includes the definition of Dyslexia within such
provisions.
Dyslexia's currently obscure and undefined placement in regulation
ignores its immense prevalence in the population and creates the false
impression that it happens with the rarity of aphasia and perceptual
disabilities. Dyslexia is a dynamic phenomenon that makes an unimagina-
tively constructed written language system difficult to process in the
visually-empowered, differently-wired brain that dyslexics are blessed
with. Students with dyslexia need evidence-based, effective intervention
such as structured, multisensory language based educational inter-
ventions in order to address the problem at hand through the proper
individualized education plan.
This legislation removes Dyslexia from its current placement within the
definition of Learning Disability and recognizes it as a specific learn-
ing disability that is neurobiological in origin. It uses the Interna-
tional Dyslexia Association's definition of Dyslexia which was derived
from a multi- year collaboration that included neuroscience experts from
Yale and Georgetown Universities. It would ensure that students with
Dyslexia receive the proper instruction and a quality education as
currently afforded to other students.
 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
2017: New Legislation
 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
To be determined.
 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately, provided, however, it shall not
affect any student's individualized education program that has been
approved for the two thousand eighteen - two thousand nineteen school
year; provided, however, that the amendments to subdivision 1 of section
4401 of the education law made by section one of this act shall be
subject to the expiration and reversion of such subdivision pursuant to
section 22 of chapter 352 of the laws of 2005, as amended, when upon
such date the provisions of section two of this act shall take effect.