Advancement for Members With Special Needs

What this page is

How advancement works for a member with a disability or special need, drawn from the Guide to Advancement section 10 and cited on every item.

The line the whole section turns on

An accommodation changes HOW a Scout is learning. Extra time, a quieter room, a swim test at a different hour, glasses, hearing aids, a text-to-speech reader, a mouth-operated bow release. It is approved in the unit — by the Cubmaster, the Scoutmaster or the merit badge counselor — and it needs no documentation at all.

A modification changes WHAT a Scout is learning. The Guide's own example is earning Pioneering in place of Camping. Only the council advancement committee can approve one, and it requires a written statement from a health professional qualified in the relevant disability.

Almost every disagreement about special needs advancement is really a disagreement about which of those two something is. Deciding that first saves the argument.

Five things people get wrong

Merit badge requirements are never modified. Not one of them, not ever, for anybody. Flexibility and accommodations apply to merit badges; alternative requirements do not. What a Scout may ask for is a different badge, whole, in place of an Eagle-required one.

There are no alternative requirements for Star, Life or Eagle. That avenue covers Scout, Tenderfoot, Second Class and First Class only. Alternative merit badges are a separate thing and are available for Eagle.

Try the requirement first. The Guide asks to see a good-faith attempt before an alternative is approved, and says plainly why: Scouts regularly do more than the adults around them expected.

The clock does not stop. Alternatives must be finished by the 18th birthday for Scouts BSA, or the 21st for Venturing and Sea Scouts, unless the member has been approved to register beyond the age of eligibility.

Moderate learning disabilities are normally not enough. The Guide states that youth with only moderate learning disabilities, or disorders such as ADD or ADHD, can normally complete standard requirements, more slowly.

Afterwards

Every application here rests on private medical information. When the decision has been recorded and delivered, that information goes back to whoever provided it, or is destroyed. It is a step of the process, not an afterthought.

How to read the graph

An arrow points from the thing that has to happen first to the thing it unlocks. Nested items are part of the step above them rather than steps of their own. Dotted lines are recommended order carrying no obligation; dashed lines apply only in the case written on the arrow.