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And Miles to Go...:
State SLD Requirements
and Authoritative Recommendations

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Report Text

• Introduction
• SLD Definitions and Classification Criteria
• Historical Overview
• Questioning the Ability-Achievement Discrepancy
• Recommendations for Change in SLD Definition and Classification Criteria
• State Education Agency SLD Definitions and Criteria
• Methodology
• Results
• Analysis of Discrepancy Determination Methods
• Summary of Trends
• SLD Beliefs
• Further Analyses
• Discussion
• References

Figures and Tables

• Figure 1: Distribution of State SLD Prevalence
• Table 1: Consensus Conclusions: LD Summit Follow-Up (Bradley et al., 2002)
• Table 2: Components of State Definitions and Criteria
• Table 3: Methods used to determine the discrepancy
• Table 4: LD Beliefs

SLD Beliefs

Possible direction of SLD identification changes were studied through a beliefs inventory. Results of the SLD Beliefs inventory are presented in Table 4. Recall that the respondents to the SLD Beliefs inventory are the individuals in each state designated by the state director of special education as the principal contact person or the source of authoritative information regarding SLD. Readers are cautioned to remember that vast differences often exist between expressed beliefs and actual behaviors. It cannot be assumed that the sentiments expressed on this beliefs inventory will translate directly into explicit actions by individuals or by states. These results may be useful, however, as indications of likely trends in how SLD criteria may evolve over the next decade.

In Table 4, the actual item is presented on the left, followed by the mean and standard deviation, with the actual percentage of responses on each of the scale options appearing on the far right. For example on item one, "Too many students are being classified as learning disabled and placed in special education," the mean response was 3.86, the standard deviation was 1.09 and 53% of the respondents agreed with this statement and another 28% strongly agreed with this statement. In contrast, only 20% of the respondents were neutral or disagreed with this statement.

As a rule of thumb to guide interpretation, we decided to focus on responses with means of greater than 3.5 or less than 2.5. These means indicate relatively strong sentiment in one direction or another. It is important to note, however, on virtually every item there were at least some SEA respondents who strongly agreed while others strongly disagreed, indicating significant variation in sentiments.

Using this rule of thumb, worthy of further comment are items 1, 4, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 20, 21, and 22. Three of the items have to do with SLD prevalence (#s 1, 4, and 22). State SEA personnel responding to this survey generally agreed with the statements that too many students are being classified as learning disabled and students are often classified as SLD so that services can be provided even though they do not have a genuine disability. This group also suggested that too many minority students are being identified as SLD, although that item just barely met our criterion for further comment. The sentiments regarding prevalence are interesting, perhaps reflecting state concerns about the costs of special education. The actual prevalence of SLD, however, is not substantially different from the hypothesized prevalence stated in the consensus conclusions formulated by SLD researches (see Table 1). A further analysis is needed to see if the sentiments about prevalence are correlated with actual state prevalence, i.e., Do SEA representatives in states with higher prevalence express more concern about excessive numbers of students in SLD programs?

Five items addressed sentiment regarding the ability-achievement discrepancy method of determining eligibility for SLD. Overall sentiment regarding these five items (see items 13, 14, 9, 11, and 21) clearly suggest significant skepticism about the usefulness of the ability achievement discrepancy. On item 9, sixty percent of all respondents disagreed with retaining the ability achievement discrepancy criterion. In item 11, slightly over 60% of respondents rejected SLD classification based on exclusion factors and the severe discrepancy. Similar sentiments were expressed on item 21 where the SEA representatives rejected the notion of the ability achievement discrepancy as a unique feature of SLD that should be retained. Moreover, in items 13 and 14 the respondents were skeptical about whether the IQ-achievement discrepancy method identified the poor readers who are most likely to make significant gains in reading and they endorsed the notion that the IQ discrepancy method often causes harm because LD identification is delayed to later ages. Before leaving the discussion of the IQ-achievement discrepancy items, it should be acknowledged that significant proportions of participants, about 20%, appear to be committed to the retention of the IQ-achievement discrepancy.

Several items dealt with alternatives to the ability-achievement discrepancy method of determining SLD eligibility. Items 10, 12, 15, and 20 focus on dual discrepancy criteria (low rate of progress and large differences in level of achievement), response to treatment, early treatment of reading through early identification, and the use of progress monitoring with formative evaluation. Relatively strong sentiment in favor of these alternatives was expressed by a clear majority of the respondents.

The results here suggest clearly that at least the majority of SEA SLD specialists favor changing how SLD is identified. The clear majority appears to favor the adoption of alternative criteria such as response to intervention, dual discrepancy, progress monitoring with formative evaluation, and early identification and treatment of students with reading problems. Generally, these sentiments are consistent with national association recommendations (LD Roundtable, 2002) and the consensus conclusions of the LD researchers (See Table 1).

The degree of consensus implied in the preceding paragraphs needs to be tempered by the very broad range of opinion on the 10 items involving key decisions about classification criteria and the design of special education for students with SLD. State SLD authorities clearly do not agree regarding the usefulness of processing factors in classification criteria (see item 2) or in instruction (see item 8). Responses to item 8 are especially surprising compared to the broad consensus among researchers about the current usefulness of processing factors in classification and instruction (Bradley et al., 2002, see Table 1) and the largely negative results in studies using processing information as a means to select instructional methods that capitalize on presumed strengths (Kavale & Forness, 1999).

Similar variations in opinions exist regarding the importance of retaining intellectual ability as part of SLD classification criteria and its usefulness to interventions (see items 3 and 4). There is no consensus regarding the usefulness of neuropsychological information (see items 9 and 18), the appropriate method to determine the ability-achievement discrepancy (see item 17), and the advisability of a cross- or non-categorical classification (see items 7 and 19). Finally, there was no consensus regarding the relative importance of intra- and inter-individual differences in SLD classification.

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