SSD Disability: Filing an SSI Disability Claim for a Child

All disability decisions are decided based on information contained in the applicant’s medical records, regardless of if the applicant is an adult or a child. However, when claims for disability are filed on behalf of children, other types of records in addition to medical records may be required in order to prove that the child is eligible for supplemental security income (SSI).

Unlike adults who apply for SSDI/SSI, children do not have to prove that they are unable to work. The Social Security Administration (SSA) has different disability criteria that it considers in terms of child disability claims (SSI), because it defines disability in children as an inability to function at an age-appropriate level or to take part in age-appropriate activities, rather than an inability to work.

Because a child’s development is often judged in comparison to his or her peers, most SSI claims will require some input from the child’s school regarding the affect the impairment has on his ability to participate in “normal” activities. If you are filing for disability for your child, call the school from which you need records, explain that you are filing for SSI for your child and what types of reports you need, and ask how to go about getting those. This is the best, most direct way to find out to whom you should send a records request—different school districts have different policies concerning requests for records, and sometimes policy varies from school to school within the same district.

Types of records that SSA might require you to produce include report cards, IEPs, standardized test results, attendance records, any IQ testing, or other types of academic achievement testing. Teachers’ questionnaires can also be helpful in evaluating a child because a teacher is really in the best position to judge how students’ academic and social skills compare to their peers, and how impairments such as ADHD, autism, chronic asthma, etc., affect students’ ability to succeed in an academic and social environment.

Unfortunately, the SSA will not send a questionnaire to your child’s teacher, nor will anyone at SSA inform you that such an option exists. However, if you have retained an attorney, your attorney should send out a questionnaire to all of your child’s teachers prior to any disability hearing. (Note: Children’s disability hearings, like adult disability hearings, can be scheduled only after the initial SSI application and first appeal, or reconsideration appeal, has been turned down by the state disability determination services agency.)

If your child’s attorney does not plan to send out any teacher questionnaires, get another lawyer. The whole point of obtaining legal representation is to have the strongest case possible prepared when it is time to present your child’s disability claim to a federal administrative judge. Anything less is not acceptable.