According to South Carolina's Office of Exceptional Children Policies and Procedures released April 6, 2009, one way that a student's behavior is determined to be a manifestation of the student's disability is when relevant members of the student's IEP team determine that the behavior in question was caused by, or had a "direct and substantial" relationship to the child's disability. The phrase "direct and substantial" has not been specifially defined. The only guidance to what is meant by the phrase "direct and substantial" is a statement in the comments to the federal regulations indicating that a behavior should not be determined to be a manifestation of a student's disability if the relationship of that behavior to the child's disability was merely "an attenuated association, such as low self-esteem." (Federal Register, August 14, 2006, pg. 46,720.)With so little guidance regarding this question, it is useful to examine the plain meaning of the words themselves. Webster's dictionary defines the term "direct," as the term appears to be used in the context of a manifestation determination, as "proceeding in a stratight line or by the shortest course; straight; not oblique; proceeding in an unbroken line of descent." The term "substantial" is defined as "of ample or considerable amount, quantity, size, etc." See Webster's College Dictionary, Random House (Second Edition 1999). Accordingly, to have both a direct and substantial relationship to a student's disability, the student's behavior must be linked straight to the student's disability without the necessity of examining outside influences or effects and the link of the behavior to the disability must be one of ample or considerable proportion. This is a subjective standard and reasonable minds on the team may disagree. When that happens, the school representative on the team must make the final decision. A parent has a right to challenge the decision of a manifestation team through an expedited due process hearing.
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