Due process hearings provide a formal resolution for disagreements that may arise within special education. The purpose of this study was to examine the types of issues that arise in due process cases for students with emotional disturbance (ED). The current study examined select due process hearings during 2014 to 2019 from four states for…

Autism spectrum disorder is diagnosed more in males than females, this difference is even more prevalent if the female is of at least average intelligence. The problem addressed by this qualitative exploratory case study was the under-identification of females with autism due to their masking behavior. This problem directly impacts females who…

Special education policy impacts education equity. More specifically, special education policy surrounding the identification of students with disabilities and the provision of instructional support services to students identified as having a disability has experienced critical public attention and landmark federal and state mandates for reform…

The purpose of this research study was to investigate the perspectives of educational diagnosticians regarding male and female students receiving special education services in central Texas public schools. Since educational diagnosticians are the professionals who determine if students are eligible for special education services by administering…

This exploratory, descriptive study sought to determine the perceptions of special education (SPED) directors and their respective SPED teachers regarding self-efficacy in meeting the diverse needs of students who have English learning challenges and have been identified as having special learning needs. Also, general information regarding the…

Dysgraphia is a specific learning disability in the area of written language that is frequently under-identified in the school setting due to inconsistent application of dysgraphia assessment. The problem addressed in this study was the inconsistency in dysgraphia assessment processes, in Texas public school systems, that contribute to an…

Due to lack of consistency among diagnosis practices of students with specific learning disabilities (SLDs) in the state of Texas, as well as other legal matters regarding diagnoses of SLD, there is a divide among eligibility criteria for students around the state. Currently, the three models that have received the most attention of SLD…

State legislation serves as a guide and critical influence on the evaluation and identification of students with dyslexia across the United States. The state of Texas has numerous laws and regulations concerning dyslexia, guided by the Texas Administrative Code, Texas Education Code, Texas Occupations Code, and the Texas Education Agency's…

The state of Texas has been cited through the U.S. Department of Education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) as failing to identify students under the Child Find component of the law using Response to Intervention/Multi-Tiered System of Support (RtI/MTSS). The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to identify…

Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that impacts word reading accuracy and/or reading fluency. Over half of the states in the USA have passed legislation intended to promote better identification of individuals with dyslexia. To date, no study has been conducted to investigate the potential impact of state laws on the identification of…

In this report, we summarize research on the identification of SLD and make recommendations for practice. The report begins with a summary of the legal requirements for SLD identification and what constitutes a comprehensive evaluation. It then discusses the attributes of SLD according to different conceptual frameworks and reviews research on the…

Many states now mandate early screening for dyslexia, but vary in how they address these mandates. There is confusion about the nature of screening versus diagnostic assessments, risk versus diagnosis, concurrent versus predictive validity, and inattention to indices of classification accuracy as the basis for determining risk. To help define what…

We used time-varying effect modelling of two very large samples of fourth-grade students (N[subscript reading] = 148,240, N[subscript mathematics] = 152,220) to investigate associations between adoption and over-time implementation of a de facto cap on special education service receipt and over-time likelihoods of disability identification from…

All but seven U.S. states have laws that govern some aspects of dyslexia screening, intervention, or teacher training in public schools. However, in the three states that mandate child-level reporting, data indicate lower than expected rates of dyslexia identification when compared with commonly accepted dyslexia prevalence rates. To better…

Whether students of color are more or less likely to be identified as having disabilities than similarly situated students who are White in U.S. states with histories of de jure and de facto racial segregation is currently unknown. Unadjusted analyses of large samples of students attending elementary and middle schools in the U.S. South yielded…