Adaptive Equipment – devices, aids, controls, appliances, or supplies which are necessary to enable the person to increase or maintain his or her ability to live at home with independence and safety.

Advocacy – refers to speaking up for your rights or the rights of another.

Affirmative Business – a business that employs a workforce of people with developmental disabilities in an integrated setting.  It is regulated as a business and as such provides all employees with competitive wages and benefits. 

Care at Home – a Medicaid waiver program that allows children with developmental disabilities and complex health care needs to receive needed services while living at home. 

Community Residence Supervised (CR) – a facility with 24-hour on-site staff that provides housing, supplies, and services for people with developmental disabilities. 

Crisis Intervention – a service which consists of those activities that assist persons with developmental disabilities and their families to deal with specific and time-limited problems which threaten to disrupt the individual’s residential day services. 

Day Habilitation – individualized services for people with developmental disabilities that are directed toward acquiring, retaining, and improving those skills necessary for an individual to reside in the community.  Habilitation services may be provided in the community (day habilitation) or in a residence or a program connected with a residence (residential habilitation). 

Day Training – a combination of nonresidential services that assists people with developmental disabilities to acquire skills and develop competencies to improve their personal, social, educational and prevocational functioning. 

Day Treatment – a planned combination of diagnostic, treatment, and rehabilitative services provided for people with developmental disabilities at an OMRDD certified day treatment site. 

Developmental Disability – NYS Mental Hygiene Law, Section 1.03(22) defines developmental disability as follows: 

1.      is attributable to mental retardation, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, neurological impairment, or autism

2.      is attributable to any other condition of a person found to be closely related to mental retardation because such condition results in similar impairment of general intellectual functioning or adaptive behavior to that of mentally retarded persons or requires treatment and services similar to those required for such persons

3.      is attributable to dyslexia resulting from a disability described above

·        originates before such person attains age 22

·        has continued or can be expected to continue indefinitely, and

·        constitutes a substantial handicap to such person’s ability to function normally in society.

Each of the initial three requirements for eligibility in paragraph one are interchangeable, but at least one of these three must occur in combination with the latter three requirements for a person to be eligible for OMRDD-funded services.  A functional assessment of the impact of the disability upon the person’s ability to function normally in society is necessary to determine eligibility regardless of the diagnosis of the disability.  Mental retardation is the sole exception, as a clinical diagnosis of mental retardation would satisfy all of the criteria automatically, based on how mental retardation is defined in the Mental Hygiene Law. 

Environmental Modifications – Changes to the home environment chosen by the consumer and identified as necessary to enable that person to function with greater independence in the home. 

Family Support Services – goods, services, and subsidies that assist families to care at home for a family member with a developmental disability. 

Home and Community Based Medicaid Waiver Program – funding source for individual’s with developmental disabilities which provides support services.  Eligibility is based on individual’s disability, regardless of his/her age, not on parent/guardian income. 

Respite – short-term services which provide relief to the primary care givers of people with developmental disabilities.  Hourly respite may be provided in a person’s home, family care, or OMRDD certified or approved site, with the exception of Individual Residential Alternatives. 

Supported Employment – paid competitive work performed in an integrated setting by people with developmental disabilities who require intensive support services to obtain and sustain employment. 

Transition – traditionally refers to the process of preparing for adult life for people with developmental disabilities.

[Return to Top]