Donald L. MacMillan, University of California, Riverside, & Gary N. Siperstein, University of Massachusetts, Boston
Learning Disabilities Summit: Building a Foundation for the Future White Papers
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The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA; Public Law 105-17) stipulates regulations that guide the public schools in identifying students eligible for special education and related services. Moreover, it provides compliance reviews that ensure that the public schools in a given state act in accordance with the regulations. It is our position in this paper that the schools follow the letter of the law, albeit somewhat reluctantly at times, in establishing eligibility of children for special education by virtue of meeting criteria for learning disabilities (LDs). Furthermore, we contend that the public schools attempt to implement this process in compliance with IDEA stipulations and, in so doing, yield a population of LD students that
The population of LD students has also changed over the years as our public schools have responded to societal and policy changes and the ways in which these have affected both general and special education.
Between 1976-77 and 1992-93, the number of children served as LD nationwide increased by 198% (U.S. Department of Education, 1995). Commenting on the magnitude of the increase in LD, MacMillan, Gresham, Siperstein, and Bocian (1996) wrote: "Were these epidemic-like figures interpreted by the Center for Disease Control one might reasonably expect to find a quarantine imposed on the public schools of America" (p. 169). There have been many debates over the reasons for this dramatic rise in the prevalence of LD. There are those who contend that LD has "matured" and detection methods improved, resulting in the identification of cases that would have been overlooked in the early years of the LD field (Hallahan, 1992). In addition, Hallahan noted increased threats to developing children (e.g., prenatal substance abuse, environmental toxins) that, when extreme, result in mental retardation, but when only moderate may be expressed as a more modest disability--LD. In contrast, there are those who believe that despite all of the debates over the true definition of LD, the disability category reflects the changing culture and process of our schools. In fact, as Reid Lyon was recently quoted in the Los Angeles Times (Colvin & Helfand, 2000), "Learning disabilities has become a sociological sponge to wipe up the spills of general education...It's where children who weren't taught well go in many respects" (p. 1). This operational definition hearkens back to the prophetic words of Evelyn Deno (1970) who noted that special education accepts regular education's "fallout." We believe that regardless of one's perspective on this issue, it is time to ask whether LD, as originally conceived (e.g., Bateman, 1965), is no longer recognizable in our schools. This paper will explore what we believe are the reasons for the significant increase in the prevalence of LD and by so doing, cast doubt on the continued utility of the present approach to defining LD.
To begin, let us turn our attention to the definition guiding school identification and then the evidence bearing on the extent to which school-identified LD meets the definitional criteria.
Before reviewing the stages in the identification process that emerge when the regulations in IDEA are implemented, let us turn our attention to the authoritative definition ostensibly guiding school identification of LD. Then we will examine the evidence bearing on the extent to which subjectivity in schools' decision-making process departs from the definition. The authoritative definition produced by the National Advisory Committee on Handicapped Children (1968) was adopted in the federal regulations authored by the U.S. Office of Education (1977) defining LD (Mercer, Jordan, Allsopp, & Mercer, 1996). The definition reads:
"Specific learning disability" means a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, which may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations. The term includes such conditions as perceptual handicaps, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. The term does not include children who have learning problems which are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor handicaps, of mental retardation, or emotional disturbance, or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage. (USOE, 1977, p. 65083)
Of importance to the present paper is what is included in the definition and what is excluded. For example, included in the definition are the following three elements: (a) the conditions of brain injury and minimal brain dysfunction, (b) evidence of in-child, presumably causal, neurological condition(s), and (c) exclusionary criteria specifying that these learning problems are not the result of mental retardation or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage (Keogh, 1994). We point out the exclusionary criteria, particularly, for it is here that we will see the differences between research-identified (RI) and school-identified (SI) perspectives.
To best understand the actual prevalence of LD, we must first make salient the two different perspectives on "who is LD." Specifically, we distinguish between SI and RI samples of students with LD (MacMillan, Gresham, & Bocian, 1998). The reason for this distinction is that the two approaches typically identify overlapping, but substantially different, groups of students. Stated differently, the compendium of research findings comparing the two approaches suggests that over half of the SI LD children fail to meet the criteria employed in RI LD sampling and specified in federal regulations or state education codes (MacMillan, Gresham, & Bocian, 1998; MacMillan & Speece, 1999; Shepard, 1983; Shepard, Smith, & Vojir, 1983). This is a paradoxical finding in light of the fact that the public schools are presumably required to establish a child as eligible for special education and related services by virtue of that child meeting the specified criteria for eligibility.
Since LD was recognized as an educational disability category, an ongoing discussion of the definition and the criteria adopted in implementing the definition has failed to result in consensus (see Doris, 1993; Kavale & Forness, 1985; Keogh, 1986), as also attested to in the other chapters in this volume. Maybe as a result of this failure to achieve consensus, the field has engaged in extensive and ongoing debate regarding the definition and criteria for establishing eligibility. However, that exchange has occurred almost exclusively in the context of RI cases of LD; that is, discussing "what ought to be" rather than "what is." The urgency in public school settings to provide assistance and support to children encountering academic difficulties has necessitated labeling some children as LD despite the fact that the debate over definition and criteria continues. Let us be clear that we are not suggesting that the debate over definition and criteria be terminated.
Because academics author most of the papers addressing these issues, a clear preference for RI over SI emerges. Academics tend to interpret the failure of the SI population of LD to perfectly match the RI population as an error by the schools. Gerber (1999-2000) described this state of affairs as follows: "Demonstration that schools identify problem learners with markedly different characteristics than those proposed by formal models...too often has led to premature conclusion that the models must be right and the schools wrong" (p. 40). Our message here is that we cannot, and should not, disregard the SI LD population, because it is that SI LD population over which public policy issues have been raised. It is the SI LD population, with all its imprecision, that is counted in the Annual Reports to Congress. It is the SI LD population that is examined in efforts by the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) to monitor the representation of the various racial/ethnic groups in the LD category in its surveys. It is the SI LD population that raises concerns over the dramatic increase in identification rates which is being described as an epidemic. Therefore, the only way to understand the SI LD population is to understand how public schools function and to acknowledge the various reasons schools have for identifying individuals with LD.
Of the five reasons that educators have for identifying LD listed by Keogh (1994) (eligibility, planning for services, assessing outcomes, research, and advocacy), "planning for services" drives schools' diagnostic identification process, with only secondary concerns for "eligibility." In contrast, "eligibility" and "research" drive researchers as they seek to protect against threats to the internal validity of their research. Furthermore, we suspect that the schools approach eligibility with a different set of concerns than those faced by researchers (Bocian, Beebe, MacMillan, & Gresham, 1999).
In the present paper we take an educational perspective in exploring who the schools serve as LD and attempt to describe the decision-making process that has resulted in the dramatic increases in LD students. The sorting of students ultimately resulting in some students being found eligible for special education services by virtue of qualifying as LD proceeds through several steps required under provisions of IDEA. The "protections" provided prohibit eligibility decisions being reached on the basis of single tests, particularly tests considered inappropriate for use with particular groups of children. In addition, parental consent is required prior to assessments, and parental roles in the process were strengthened under the reauthorization of IDEA. At the risk of oversimplifying the sorting process, let us suggest that several stages are apparent: referral by general education teacher, prereferral intervention efforts implemented in the general education setting, formal assessment of the student, and finally, eligibility and development of an individualized education plan (IEP) by a team.1 As we describe these stages, the reader is asked to recognize a recurrent theme: at each stage, clinical judgment introduces a degree of subjectivity which affects the ultimate eligibility decision. Furthermore, the subjectivity present at each successive stage is additive.
Funding for NRCLD is provided by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special
Education Programs. Award No. H324U010004. Opinions expressed herein are those of the National
Research Center on Learning Disabilities and do not necessarily represent the position of the U.S.
Department of Education.
© 2007 National Research Center on Learning Disabilities
Last Updated: November 19, 2007
Contact: nrcld@ku.edu