The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (2004) allows alternate pathways for school districts to identify and classify students with a specific learning disability (SLD). Response to Intervention (RtI) is one of the frameworks schools can use when eliminating the use of the discrepancy model. The premise of RtI posits that…

Research on neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) has led us to refine our theoretical and methodological approaches. We explore whether new deficit clusters in line with the Research Domain Criteria, a novel multifactorial framework, optimally explain known conditions such as ADHD, DLD, or SLD in reading. Following the PRISMA guidelines for…

Black, Latinx and other minoritized students have long been overrepresented in the high-incidence disability classifications including Learning Disability, Emotional Disturbance, Intellectual Impairment, and Speech and Language Impairment. Inappropriate special education placement denies students access to the general education curriculum and…

Purpose: Developmental language disorder (DLD) is a lifelong condition that when impacting educational performance is identified and serviced through U.S. schools as outlined in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. A few examples of educational categories that refer to DLD are (a) speech or language impairment (S/LI) and (b) specific…

Possible symptoms of intellectual disability (ID) include delayed physical development that becomes more pronounced as the disability progresses, delayed development of gross and fine motor skills, sensory perception problems, and difficulty grasping the integrity of objects. Although there is no cure or reversal, research has shown that extensive…

Educators, families, and policy actors rely on federal and state special education law to inform many decision-making processes. Vague eligibility criteria within the laws can result in conflict between school districts and parents. Resulting due process hearing decisions can have important implications for future practice. One area of particular…

Background: Classification systems in healthcare support shared understanding of conditions for clinical communication, service monitoring and development, and research. Children born with cleft palate with or without cleft lip (CP+/-L) are at high risk of developing cleft-related speech sound disorder (SSD). The way cleft-related SSD is…

Developmental dyscalculia (DD) is a mathematical learning disability that occurs in around 5%-7% of the population. At present, there are only a handful of screening tools to identify children that might be at risk of developing DD. The present study evaluated the classification accuracy of one such tool: The Numeracy Screener, a 2-min test of…

This study used data from the U.S. state of Michigan schools participating in the "Reading First" program to examine the stability of students' disability status in Grades 1 to 3. Reading First aimed to improve at-risk students' reading comprehension through research-based instruction. We analyzed how changes in students' disability…

We use data from Michigan and an interrupted time series strategy to show how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted special education identifications and discontinuations. We find a substantial decrease in K-5 identifications and discontinuations during the 2019 to 2020 and 2020 to 2021 school years. Identifications fell by 19% and 12% in the first two…

Children with severe motor and intellectual disabilities (CSMID) face challenges in the transition from childhood to adult life after graduation, including changing health conditions caused by the acceleration of secondary disabilities, transition from paediatric to adult health care, and transition to places where they spend time after graduation…

Growing numbers of students are educated in charter schools, including students with disabilities (SWD). Prior research suggests that charter schools educate a smaller percentage of SWD than traditional public schools, leading to a special education gap between sectors. We used data from a large urban district to examine how choice, mobility, and…

Background: Nationally, about 15% of students -- about 7.3 million -- receive special education services. Each of these students is legally entitled to the services specified in their Individualized Education Program (IEP) document, which is co-developed by a child's school team (e.g., teachers, school psychologist), family, and in many cases, the…

In this article, we demonstrate the potential of machine learning approaches as inductive analytic tools for expanding our current evidence base for policy making and practice that affects people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Using data from the National Core Indicators In-Person Survey (NCI-IPS), a nationally validated…

We use data from Michigan and an interrupted time series (ITS) strategy to show how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted new special education classifications and discontinuations. We find a substantial decrease in K-5 classifications and discontinuations during the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years. Classifications fell by 19 and 12 percent in these…