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Perceptions and Expectations of Youth With Disabilities  (NLTS2)
NCSER 2007-3006
September 2007

Table 14.  Youth's reported perceptions of relationships with friends, by disability category

Relationships Learning disability Speech/ language impairment Mental retardation Emotional disturbance Hearing impairment Visual impairment Orthopedic impairment Other health impairment Autism Traumatic brain injury Multiple disabilities Deaf-blindness
Percent / standard error
Youth feel cared about by friends                        
A lot 52.9 50.9 50.4 42.9 48.0 62.1 59.8 49.6 37.5 56.7 59.5 49.2
(4.25) (4.68) (5.86) (4.61) (6.14) (6.16) (5.62) (4.62) (7.17) (8.92) (7.25) (9.12)
Quite a bit 34.0 30.6 18.4 30.4 31.9 27.6 26.2 27.2 31.8 27.0 21.5 29.6
(4.03) (4.31) (4.54) (4.28) (5.72) (5.68) (5.04) (4.11) (6.90) (7.99) (6.07) (8.33)
Some 9.7 12.1 13.0 17.9 15.3 8.7 8.5 13.3 23.9 6.0 8.6 16.9
(2.52) (3.05) (3.94) (3.57) (4.42) (3.58) (3.20) (3.14) (6.32) (4.28) (4.14) (6.84)
Very little or not at all 3.4 6.4 18.2 8.8 4.8 1.5 5.5 9.9 6.8 10.3 10.4 4.7
(1.54) (2.29) (4.52) (2.64) (2.63) (1.54) (2.61) (2.76) (3.73) (5.47) (4.51) (2.61)
                         
Response to question "Can you find a friend when you need one?"                        
Yes 79.0 78.3 70.5 77.0 81.6 80.3 78.6 73.8 47.2 58.6 79.2 72.5
(4.05) (4.14) (6.48) (4.93) (5.22) (5.98) (5.57) (4.89) (8.28) (9.59) (7.22) (8.83)
Sometimes 19.6 21.4 25.2 20.1 14.5 19.7 20.6 22.9 45.1 37.7 19.3 22.4
(3.95) (4.13) (6.17) (4.70) (4.74) (5.97) (5.49) (4.68) (8.25) (9.43) (7.02) (8.25)
No 1.4 0.3 4.3 2.9 3.9 0.1 0.8 3.3 7.7 3.7 1.5 5.1
(1.15) (0.52) (2.89) (1.95) (2.61) (0.44) (1.21) (1.99) (4.43) (3.69) (2.16) (4.34)
                         
Confidence that youth "can make friends easily"                        
Confident 73.3 66.0 70.3 71.2 69.5 58.7 62.0 63.2 38.8 61.5 67.6 59.2
(4.41) (4.77) (6.56) (5.31) (6.23) (7.49) (6.61) (5.37) (8.05) (9.44) (8.33) (9.84)
Not sure 23.0 30.2 21.3 22.7 23.4 37.7 28.5 32.2 33.9 37.9 27.5 35.8
(4.19) (4.63) (5.88) (4.90) (5.73) (7.37) (6.14) (5.20) (7.82) (9.41) (7.95) (9.60)
Not at all confident 3.8 3.8 8.4 6.2 7.0 3.6 9.5 4.7 27.4 0.6 4.8 5.0
(1.90) (1.92) (3.97) (2.82) (3.46) (2.84) (3.99) (2.35) (7.36) (1.49) (3.82) (4.38)
NOTE: Response categories "very little" and "not at all" have been collapsed for reporting purposes.
SOURCES: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Special Education Research, National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2), Wave 2 youth telephone interview/mail survey, 2003; youth in-person interviews, 2002 and 2004.

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