Patterns in the Identification of and Outcomes for Children and Youth with Disabilities

Contractor: SRI International

Background/Research Questions:

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA 2004) is the most recent authorization of a law passed in 1975 to promote a free appropriate public education for children with disabilities. Funded at $12.6 billion in FY 2009 (plus an additional $12.2 billion through the Recovery Act), IDEA supports early intervention services for infants and toddlers, special education services for children ages 3 through 21, and early intervening services for students not in special education but in need of academic or behavioral support. IES is conducting studies under Section 664 of IDEA 2004 to assess the implementation and effectiveness of key programs and services supported under the law.

IDEA 2004 emphasizes the early and appropriate identification of children with disabilities and the improvement of outcomes (including performance on state academic assessments) for children receiving IDEA services. This task, part of the National Assessment of IDEA 2004, is supporting the analysis of extant data as a cost-effective means of examining patterns of identification of and outcomes for children with disabilities. The contractor will address research questions in the following three topic areas: (1) Identification for early intervention and special education; (2) Loss of eligibility for early intervention and special education; and (3) Developmental and academic outcomes for children with disabilities.

Design:

This study includes the synthesis of existing evidence and new analyses of extant data sources to address research questions in the above areas. Among the extant data sources being used for the study are the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), data from State academic assessments of children with disabilities, Section 618 data submitted by States to ED to track IDEA 2004 implementation, Census Bureau population estimates, and data gathered from four national longitudinal studies of children with disabilities (National Early Intervention Longitudinal Study (NEILS), Pre-Elementary Education Longitudinal Study (PEELS), Special Education Elementary Longitudinal Study (SEELS), and National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS-2)).

Cost/Duration: $2,039,560 over 29 months (August 2007 to January 2010)

Current Status:

The final report on patterns of identification and outcomes for children with disabilities was released in January 2010 (see http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20104005/index.asp).

Key Findings:

Descriptive results were reported for each age group served under IDEA:

• For all three age groups, there was an increase from 1997 to 2005 in the percentages of children identified for services under IDEA.
• Patterns in the developmental and academic outcomes for children identified for services under IDEA varied across age groups. Based on NEILS parent and teacher reports of skills, former early intervention participants with IEPs continuing to receive special education service showed lower levels of performance across the five developmental domains than their same age peers in kindergarten. From the PEELS, preschool-age children identified for services under IDEA did not differ from the general population of same-age children on letter and word identification skills but had a significantly lower applied mathematics skills, and teacher ratings of social skills. Among school-age children, the average NAEP test scores in fourth-grade reading and fourth- and eighth-grade mathematics increased from 2003 to 2007 for children identified and not identified for services under IDEA although school-age children and youth identified for IDEA services had significantly lower scores than their peers not identified for IDEA services in the 2003, 2005, and 2007 administrations of the NAEP.