Students' Course Taking

In the population of students with district-identified mental retardation represented by NLTS2, almost all secondary school students attended public schools; 94 percent attended regular schools serving a wide variety of students, and 4 percent attended special schools serving only students with disabilities (table 1). The other 2 percent attended charter, magnet, alternative, hospital, or home schools. When considering their levels of functioning, a statistically significant⁸ difference in school type was noted, as 96 percent of students with mental retardation that had parent-reported high or moderate cognitive functioning attended regular schools, compared with 84 percent of students with mental retardation exhibiting low cognitive functioning (p < .05 for both comparisons). Also, 15 percent of low-functioning students attended special schools, a significantly higher percentage than the 2 percent of moderate-functioning and 1 percent of high-functioning students (p < .05 for both comparisons).

In the overall cohort of students with mental retardation, 7 percent were in schools or programs that did not distinguish students by grade-level (i.e., ungraded programs), 16 percent attended middle or junior high schools, and 76 percent attended high schools. Across the different levels of cognitive functioning, 68 to 81 percent of students with mental retardation attended high school. Thus, the findings in this fact sheet primarily represent the experiences of students with mental retardation in high schools.

In a given semester, academic classes accounted for, on average, 49 percent of the courses taken by students with mental retardation (table 2). Vocational education courses accounted for 18 percent of the courses and the remaining 33 percent of classes taken by students with mental retardation included other nonacademic courses, such as fine arts classes and physical education.

When comparing the different levels of cognitive functioning, academic classes accounted for, on average, 55 percent of courses taken by high-functioning students, which was significantly higher than the proportion for academic courses taken by moderate-(46 percent, p < .01) and low-functioning (40 percent, p < .001) students with mental retardation. The average percentage of courses taken in a for low-functioning students, a significantly higher proportion than the 14 percent of courses taken in a vocational setting by high-functioning students (p < .01). Vocational education accounted for, on average, 19 percent of the courses taken by moderate-functioning students, which also was significantly higher than the proportion of vocational courses taken by high-functioning students (p < .01). Finally, other nonacademic courses accounted for, on average, 39 percent of the courses taken by low-functioning students with mental retardation, which was significantly higher than the average percentage of nonacademic courses taken by high-functioning students (31 percent, p < .05).

Academic course taking. Ninety-six percent of the overall group of students with mental retardation took at least one academic subject⁹ (table 3). Among the group of students who were taking academic classes, most students took language arts (94 percent) and mathematics classes (92 percent). About three-quarters were enrolled in social studies (75 percent) and science (74 percent). Many fewer took foreign language classes (9 percent). When comparing the different levels of parent-reported cognitive functioning, 90 to 98 percent of students with mental retardation exhibiting high, moderate, or low levels of cognitive functioning took at least one academic subject. Compared with low-functioning students with mental retardation, a higher percentage of high-functioning students took language arts (97 percent vs. 85 percent, p < .05), science (83 percent vs. 59 percent, p < .05), and social studies (87 percent vs. 55 percent, p < .001). In addition, a higher proportion of moderate-functioning students with mental retardation took social studies courses compared with low-functioning students (73 percent vs. 55 percent, p < .05).

Vocational course taking. Seventy-eight percent of the overall group of students with mental retardation were enrolled in at least one vocational course in a given semester, with 52 percent enrolled in prevocational educational courses and 62 percent taking occupationally specific vocational education courses (table 4). When stratified by parent-reported levels of functioning, 71 percent of low-functioning students and 68 percent of moderate-functioning students with mental retardation enrolled in prevocational education courses, which were significantly higher proportions than the 43 percent of high-functioning students enrolled in prevocational education courses (p < .001 and p < .01, respectively).

Other nonacademic course taking. Overall, 93 percent of students with mental retardation took nonacademic courses other than vocational education (table 5). Of those students enrolled in nonacademic courses, 78 percent were enrolled in physical education, 73 percent in life-skills/socialskills classes, 51 percent in fine arts courses, and 34 percent in study skills courses. Among the different levels of parent-reported cognitive functioning, 88 percent of low-functioning students and 79 percent of moderate-functioning students were enrolled in life-skills/social-skills classes, significantly higher percentages than the 61 percent of high-functioning students with mental retardation (p < .001 and p < .05, respectively).

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