Identification and assessment of students with disabilities.

Students with disabilities or suspected disabilities are evaluated by schools to determine whether they are eligible for special education services and, if eligible, to determine what services will be provided. In many states, the results of this evaluation also affect how much funding assistance the school will receive to meet the students' special needs. Special education classification is not uniform across states or regions. Students with identical characteristics can be diagnosed as disabled in one state but not in another and may be reclassified when they move across state or school district lines. Most disabilities with a clear medical basis are recognized by the child's physician or parents soon after birth or during the preschool years. In contrast, the majority of students with disabilities are initially referred for evaluation by their classroom teacher (or parents) because of severe and chronic achievement or behavioral problems. There is evidence that the prevalence of some disabilities varies by age, the high-incidence disabilities such as learning disabilities and speech-language disabilities occur primarily at the mild level, the mild disabilities exist on broad continua in which there are no clear demarcations between those who have and those who do not have the disability, and even "mild" disabilities may constitute formidable barriers to academic progress and significantly limit career opportunities. Problems with the current classification system include stigma to the child, low reliability, poor correlation between categorization and treatment, obsolete assumptions still in use in treatment, and disproportionate representation of minority students. Both African-American and Hispanic students are disproportionately represented in special education but in opposite directions. The disproportionately high number of African Americans in special education reflects the fact that more African-American students than white students are diagnosed with mild mental retardation. Though poverty, cultural bias, and inherent differences have been suggested as reasons for this disproportionate representation, there are no compelling data that fully explain the phenomenon. In most states, classification of a student as disabled leads to increased funding from the state to the school district. This article suggests a revised funding system that weights four factors (number of deficits, degree of discrepancy, complexity of intervention, and intensity of intervention) in a regression equation that would yield a total amount of dollars available to support the special education of a particular student.

Use of adaptive behavior measures and overrepresentation of black students in programs for students with mild mental retardation.

The use of adaptive behavior information for classification and placement of black and white students with mild mental retardation was compared and overrepresentation of black students in special classes was analyzed. Adaptive behavior measures were not used to the same extent as general intelligence tests for either group, despite court decisions and recommendations by authoritative sources. Direct comparisons on general intellectual functioning and several indices of adaptive behavior yielded few differences, suggesting that an equal treatment conception of fairness was achieved despite substantial overrepresentation of black students in programs for students with mild mental retardation. Use of adaptive behavior needs to improve significantly to comply with legal requirements.

Relationship of state educational criteria and demographic variables to school-system prevalence of mental retardation.

A survey of state departments of education revealed wide variations in mental retardation terminology, definition, and classification variables. The relationship of survey variables and demographic characteristics of states with school-system prevalence of mental retardation was analyzed. Survey variables such as mental retardation definition, adaptive behavior measurement, and IQ cutoff score were largely unrelated to school-system prevalence. Demographic characteristics based on summary data for states on variables such as per capita income, educational level, and rate of illiteracy were highly related to school-system prevalence. Caution was recommended in interpretation of results based on ecological correlations, i.e., correlations based on group summaries rather than individual data. The results were seen as further indication of the relative, social-system nature of mild mental retardation.

Evaluation of the effects of SOMPA measures on classification of students as mildly mentally retarded.

Recent suggestions for changes in classification criteria for mild mental retardation, advocated in the literature and by the courts and Federal agencies, were investigated with samples of children from four sociocultural groups. Application of the requirements of sociocultural background and broadly conceived adaptive behavior, using the System of Multicultural Pluralistic Assessment Adaptive Behavior Inventory for Children and Estimated Learning Potential measures, sharply reduced the number and percentages of children eligible for mild mental retardation classification in all sociocultural groups. Implications for the diagnostic construct of mild mental retardation and for the concept of bias in assessment were discussed.

Investigation of the norms and concurrent validity for the adaptive behavior inventory for children (ABIC).

The generalizability of norm and concurrent validity of the Adaptive Behavior Inventory for Children (ABIC) was investigated with samples of 482 first-, third-, and fifth-grade children in Pima County, Arizona. The samples were stratified by sociocultural group (white, black, Hispanic, and Native American Papago). The published ABIC means based on samples of children from California were higher for two of the three groups (white and black samples). The ABIC means for Native American Papagos were significantly lower than both California and Arizona means for other groups. Little evidence of concurrent validity was found in an examination of correlations among the ABIC, standardized achievement test results (Metropolitan), teacher ratings of classroom performance, intelligence (WISC-R), and sociocultural measures. Caution in use of the ABIC in other regions and with other sociocultural groups was recommended. Implications of the results for the measurement of adaptive behavior, for the issue of bias in assessment, and for the diagnostic construct of mild mental retardation were discussed.

Comparability of WISC and WISC-R scores among borderline and mildly retarded children.

The comparability of WISC and WISC-R IQ scores was studied in a sample of 48 mildly retarded and borderline children. All WISC-R and WISC IQ and subtest scores were found to be related significantly, but not directly comparable. Generally, the WISC-R yielded lower scores with the exceptions of the Performance IQ score and the PC, PA, and OA subtest scores. Subtest patterning on the WISC-R for this group was similar to previously reported data on the WISC. Caution was suggested in making direct comparisons of WISC and WISC-R scores, at least within the ability range studied.

Ethnicity, geographic locale, age, sex, and urban-rural residence as variables in the prevalence of mild retardation.

The Wechsler-Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) was administered to 950 of a stratified random sample of 1,040 children in Pima County, Arizona. The sample was stratified for ethnicity (Anglo, Black, Mexican-American, and Papago Indian), urban-rural residence, sex, and grade level. The three WISC-R IQ scores and cutoff points of 69 and 75 were used in comparisons of prevalence of mild mental retardation. This prevalence was significantly related to ethnicity and geographic locale. Sex, urban-rural residence, and grade level were not related to prevalence.