Students with Disabilities Resulting from Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, and Dyscalculia

New York State (NYS) Commissioner’s Regulations define learning disability to mean a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, which manifests itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations, as determined in accordance with

The term includes such conditions as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. The term does not include learning problems that are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities, of an intellectual disability, of emotional disturbance, or of environmental, cultural or economic disadvantage.��

Characteristics of:

DYSLEXIA�� A condition affecting reading skills often characterized by difficulties in areas including (but not limited to) phonological processing, decoding, fluency, and/or spelling
DYSGRAPHIA�� A condition impacting writing skills often characterized by difficulties in areas including (but not limited to) legibility and automaticity
DYSCALCULIA�� A condition impacting math skills often characterized by difficulties in areas including (but not limited to) working memory, spatial/quantity concepts impacting number sense, and symbol recognition/use

Dyslexia and Dysgraphia Task Force

Pursuant to Chapter 76 of the Laws of 2024, “The commissioner of education shall establish a task force to examine appropriate and effective evidence-based dyslexia and dysgraphia screening methods, reading interventions, and other educational supports for students in kindergarten through grade five. … The task force shall conduct … public hearings for the purpose of obtaining information from stakeholders and other interested parties including but not limited to speech pathologists, reading specialists, teachers, school administrators, and parents.”��

In the fall of 2024, stakeholders were invited to provide feedback on their experiences. Members of the public could participate (a) by��providing oral testimony��at one of three public hearings��and/or (b) by��submitting written electronic testimony��to the Department (the submission window for written testimony ended on October 15, 2024). The final report of the Task Force is available below.