Evaluating implementation of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health in Portugal's special education law Manuela Sanches-Ferreira, Rune J. Simeonsson, Mónica Silveira-Maia & Sílvia Alves Abstract This paper reports the results of a national two-year project, commissioned by the Portuguese Ministry of Education, to investigate the implementation of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) under Decree-Law 3/2008. The Decree-Law also introduced the principle that the documentation of students' functioning profiles should be the basis for eligibility decision-making – replacing the need of a diagnosis. Of specific interest was the study of the ICF implementation in the assessment, eligibility and intervention processes of students in need of specialised supports. To that end, the study was based on a document analysis of case records of 214 students. The analysis of functioning profiles showed that the ICF use promoted a functional approach in students' assessment. In addition, the use of the ICF contributed to the differentiation of eligible and non-eligible students based on their functioning profiles and addressed the most suitable educational interventions within the Individualised Education Plans. Keywords special education, legislation, ICF, functioning profiles Background Special education in the last three decades has been characterised by significant philosophical and conceptual changes with associated implications for policy and practice. These changes have occurred in the context of societal awareness of human rights (e.g. UN Conventions on the Rights of the Child 1989 and the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2006) and corresponding obligations to eliminate discrimination and segregation. This awareness contributed to the rejection of a medical model of disability based on the diagnosis of impairments and to the conceptualisation of disability based on the person's interaction with the environment. This changing conception has taken the form of a new paradigm of disability in which the environment plays a central role in the process of disablement (Verbrugge and Jette 1994) reflected in the universal language of declarations, such as the UN Millennium Development Goals and the Education for All (UN 2000). With reference to classification systems, the change was from a unidirectional relationship linking impairments, disabilities and handicaps (WHO 1980) to ones recognising the impact of the environment on individual's disability (IOM 1997). This view is described as the biopsychosocial model, which ‘ synthesizes what is true and useful in the medical and social models, without making the mistake each makes in reducing the whole, complex notion of disability to one of its aspects' (Üstun et al. 2003, 568). The publication of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) (WHO 2001) offered a framework reflecting the principles of a biopsychosocial approach and provided a systematic approach to substantiate the students' needs (Simeonsson et al. 2003). In its interactional model the ICF defines functioning as ‘the positive aspects of the interaction between an individual (with a health condition) and that individual's contextual factors (environmental and personal factors' (WHO 2001, 212).