Early Postschool Experiences of Youth With Disabilities

Data collected from youth and/or their parents are the source of information about the experiences of youth with disabilities in the first few years after leaving high school. Interview data are available for approximately 1,200 youth.

High School Leaving Status

By the time of the Wave 2 parent/youth interviews in 2003, 28 percent of youth with disabilities who had been in secondary school in the 2000–01 school year were no longer in high school. Although some youth had been out of high school as much as 2 years, the majority had been out of school from a few weeks to a little more than a year. Seventy-two percent of these 15- through 19-year-old school leavers had completed high school by graduating or receiving some kind of certificate of completion; 28 percent of school leavers had not finished high school. The most common reasons reported for dropping out of school are dislike of school (36 percent) and poor relationships with teachers and students (17 percent).

• The vast majority of youth with visual or hearing impairments (95 percent and 90 percent) completed high school, as did more than 85 percent of out-of-school youth with autism or orthopedic impairments.
  
  
• The majority of school leavers with disabilities-those in the categories of learning disability, mental retardation, speech or other health impairment, or traumatic brain injury-have school completion rates of 72 percent to 79 percent.
  
  
• The school completion rate for youth with emotional disturbances (56 percent) is lower than the rate for all other categories, with the exception of youth with multiple disabilities or mental retardation.
  
  
• Youth with disabilities from households with annual incomes of more than $50,000 are significantly more likely to complete high school than those from households with incomes of $25,000 or less (82 percent vs. 64 percent). There are no significant differences in school completion rates between youth who differ in gender or race/ethnicity.