Multiple Disabilities
Multiple disabilities, by its very name, means an individual usually has more than one significant disability, such as movement difficulties, sensory loss, and/or a behavior or emotional disorder.
There’s more to IDEA’s definition of multiple disabilities than having more than one impairment or disability. A key part of the definition is that the combination of disabilities causes the student to have severe educational needs. In fact, those educational needs must be severe enough that they cannot be addressed by providing special education services for only one of the impairments
For instance, a child may have a combination of disabilities that causes severe educational needs—cerebral palsy and autism or blindness and an emotional disturbance. Whatever the combination is, a child served under IDEA’s category of “multiple disabilities” will have a special education program that is designed to address the educational needs that arise from all of the child’s disabilities, not just one. Text thanks to: https://utahparentcenter.org/disabilities/autism/