Disability Category Differences in Self-Evaluations of Students' Competencies

Several of youth's self-evaluations of their competencies differ significantly across disability categories.

Domain-Specific Competencies

Perceptions of strengths and abilities vary both within and across disability categories (table 5). Youth with emotional disturbances are significantly more likely to report having "very good" mechanical skills (41 percent) than are those in all other categories except learning disability, traumatic brain injury, and multiple disabilities; ratings for other disability categories range from 7 percent for youth with orthopedic impairments to 25 percent for those with other health impairments. Those with emotional disturbances also are more likely to regard themselves as having "very good" athletic skills (43 percent), compared with youth with orthopedic impairments (11 percent, p < .001) or autism (14 percent, p < .001). Youth with autism are more likely to consider themselves as having "very good" computer skills (62 percent) than youth with learning disabilities (29 percent, p < .001), speech and language impairments (38 percent, p < .01), mental retardation (33 percent, p < .01), or other health impairments (37 percent, p < .001).

Within each disability category, youth appraise their skills and abilities as being stronger in some areas than others. For example, youth with learning disabilities are more likely to consider themselves to be athletic than artistic (36 percent report being "very good" at athletics vs. 22 percent at creative arts, p < .001, and 14 percent at performing arts, p < .001), and youth with orthopedic impairments are more likely to regard themselves as being computer savvy (50 percent "very good") than as mechanical (7 percent) or athletic (11 percent; p < .001 for both comparisons).

Table 5: Youth with disabilities' perceptions of strengths and interests, by disability category

Youth in different disability categories do not differ significantly in several of their self-evaluations of self-advocacy skills (table 6). For example, there are no statistically significant differences among youth in different disability categories in their reports of being able to get school staff and other adults to listen to them or in how often they report telling professionals what they think about their services. Additionally, no differences among disability categories in youth's self-evaluations of their ability to get information they need for daily activities reach statistical significance at the p < .01 level. An exception to this pattern is that two-thirds (66 percent) of youth with visual impairments state they are readily able to tell their peers how they feel when the peers upset them, whereas about half as many youth with autism (34 percent) report being similarly competent (p < .001).

Table 6: Youth with disabilities' feelings of competence, by disability category

General Competencies

There is considerable variation in scores on the personal autonomy subscale between youth in different disability categories (table 7). Although few youth (0 to 5 percent) in any disability category score in the low range, greater variation exists across disability categories for scores in the high ranges. The percentages of youth with high scores on personal autonomy range from 23 percent to 63 percent. Fewer than one-quarter of those with autism receive high scores (23 percent), compared with 63 percent of youth with visual impairments (p < .001), 57 percent of youth with hearing impairments (p < .001), 55 percent of youth with speech or language impairments (p < .001), 53 percent of youth with multiple disabilities (p < .01), 52 percent of youth with learning disabilities (p < .001), and 50 percent of youth with mental retardation (p < .01). Youth with visual impairments also are more likely than those with emotional disturbances to score in the high range on the personal autonomy scale (63 percent vs. 39 percent, p < .01). Scores on psychological empowerment are in the high range for the majority of youth in all disability categories (from 64 percent of youth with autism to 87 percent of youth with visual impairments), with no significant differences across disability categories.

Table 7: Personal autonomy and psychological empowerment scores of youth, by disability category

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