Cautions in Interpreting Findings

Readers should remember the following issues when interpreting the findings in this report:

• The analyses presented in this report are descriptive; none of the findings should be interpreted as implying causal relationships, neither should differences between disability categories be interpreted as reflecting disability differences alone, due to the confounding of disability and other demographic factors.


• The report addresses the "self-representations" of youth with disabilities—that is, how they describe themselves to others. Their "true" views and actual competencies are unknown.


• Although discussions in the report emphasize only differences that reach a level of statistical significance of at least p < .01, the large number of comparisons made in this report will result in some apparently significant differences, even at this level, being "false positives"—that is, Type 1 errors. Readers also are cautioned that the meaningfulness of differences reported here cannot be derived from their statistical significance.

This report provides the first national picture of the self-representations and expectations of youth with disabilities, how they differ across disability categories and demographic groups, and how they compare with those of youth in the general population. NLTS2 will continue to solicit the views of youth as they age, which will provide information to examine, for instance, how later achievements mesh with expectations and how views might evolve over time.