Atypical child syndrome, which was borrowed from the medical community and was commonly used prior to 1980, is almost never used to identify children today. This syndrome refers to children who are exceptional. Exceptional children differ from average or normal children and are now characterized more specifically in terms of their physical or behavioral disabilities. For example, children with handicaps including specific learning disabilities, mental retardation, emotional/behavior disorders, speech/language impairments, visual impairments, hearing impairments, other health impairments, multiple handicaps, autism, traumatic brain injury, and orthopedic impairments were once identified as atypical.