Part B Information

This section includes the following data about children receiving IDEA Part B Services:

Disability category
Educational environment
State assessments

Disability Category

Disability category refers to the primary disability listed on the child’s Individualized Education Program (IEP) and/or service plan. The most common disability categories in 2022 were:

Multiple Disabilities (34%)
Deaf-Blindness (17%)
Hearing Impairment (8%)
Other Health Impairment (7%)
Visual Impairment (4%)
Intellectual Disability (6%)

A change was made for 2022 only to the “Educational Environments: Early Childhood Special Education (3–5) (Table 2 of 2)” and the “Educational Environments: School Aged (6–21) (Table 2 of 2)” tables. Due to reporting discrepancies that made it difficult to accurately count children in the “Not Reported Under Part B” column, the number of children reported as “Not Reported Under Part B” and those reported “Unknown or Missing” have been combined and are reported in the “Unknown or Missing” column. “Not Reported Under Part B” has been set to zero for all states.

As noted in the introduction to this report, there is a large difference between the number of children identified as deafblind in the National Deafblind Child Count and the number identified in the IDEA Part B count. The fact that only 17% were identified as having deafblindness in the 2022 IDEA Part B count underscores this discrepancy, which occurs because IDEA Part B reporting regulations instruct states to count children only when a child has deafness and blindness and no other disabilities.

The difference between the two counts is important because approximately 88% of the children in the National Deafblind Child Count have one or more additional disabilities. It is common for children with deafblindness to be listed under a different disability category on the IDEA Part B child count depending on the severity of the additional disabilities they experience.

Educational Environment

The percentage of young children, aged 3 to 5, educated in regular early childhood education settings for some portion of the day was 42% in 2022. The percentage of children aged 6 to 21 being served at least a portion of the day in a regular classroom was 59%.