DEBORAH PRAISSON-STAT
Good morning. And welcome to the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to decision making. My name is Deborah Praisson-Stat (SP?) , I'm from the Office Of Special Education Programs and I will be your moderator for this session today. During this session, you will hear a 30 minute presentation by the authors of the issue paper on this topic. Followed by nine minute presentations from the issue paper respondents. There will be a 30 minute period for question and answers at the end of the session. In order to provide ample time for the presentations, please reserve your questions until the end. This session is being video and audio taped for later broadcast and the world wide web. It is therefore imperative that we remain within the time limits assigned. In addition, if you would like to address a question to the presenters during the question and answer session, please use a microphone that will be provided for you so that everyone can hear your questions. Our first speakers will be doctors Don MacMillan and Gary Siperstein. Dr. Donald MacMillan is a distinguished professor of education at the University Of California, Riverside. And holds appointments in the UCLA Medical School, and at the University Of Massachusetts, Boston. He has published many articles and chapters, is a member of the National Research Counsel Committee On Representation Of Minority Students In Special Education. And has received numerous awards for his contribution to the field of special education. Dr. Gary N. Siperstein is professor, and the director of the Center For Social Development And Education at the University Of Massachusetts, Boston. Dr. Siperstein has published over one hundred articles and chapters on the social relationships and social development of children with learning problems in educational settings. He is a past editor of the Research Monograph Series Of AAMR, and associate editor of The American Journal Of Mental Retardation. Welcome.
DONALD L. MACMILLAN
Good morning. Given the, uh, half hour limitation that, I guess, I'll be doing most of the talking. Gary can write well, but he doesn't speak. So, uh, I will be the designated speaker here. There is a, a bit of a disconnect between the title of the paper which we had entitled something to the effect of, uh, Learning Disabilities As Operation To Find Better Schools, and the topic on decision making. I think there is a connection there, and let me try to make it as we go on through the talk. Let me just make a few points before launching into kind of the formal presentation. Um, what we'll be stressing here today, is that the public schools identify a group of children as learning disabled, which differs from the authoritative definitions in the population one might suspect if we apply those parameters systematically to all the children in the public schools. Secondly that the schools are confronted with an issue of how to serve children who they perceive need help, when some of these youngsters don't neatly fit the criteria that are specified in a given state to be learning disabled, or some other designation. And I would contend that the children who do get served, do share a common characteristic. And that characteristic is that they do deviate rather sufficiently from their class room peers. That is, the local peers, maybe not on some national norms that we might establish. And third, that it's been our observation that the schools have been reluctant, particularly in recent years, to identify children as mentally retarded, and as behavior disorder, because it has certain consequences.
DONALD L. MACMILLAN
One, perceived stigma of the label of mental retardation. And secondly, with children with behavior disorders, the inability to suspend or expel once they are identified under that category. And the LD has become a gentle designation in which we find some children who might, in our opinion, better be described as mentally retarded or behavior disordered. That's the first overview. Therefore, there's one error on this overhead. Um, that the schools in trying to comply with IDEA are not free to simply apply that template over children and apply a psychometric criteria to who is identified as LD. But rather are required to follow certain prescriptions specified under IDEA. And one of the results of that, is the children who end up in the category, in some cases what I will call False Positive LD Children. What I mean by that, they are called LD, but in fact they don't meet the specified criteria in that given state. The errors in the next one, that it includes, it excludes a group of children who probably meet the criteria, but for reasons of never getting referred by a class room teacher, never coming to the attention of the school personnel. Never really get into the process, and are subsequently not identified as LD, even though they might meet the criteria. Thirdly that the group of children who are identified as learning disabled nationwide, very considerably in terms of the severity of their deficits and achievement, and also along some other behavioral characteristics such as behavior problems that might exist co-morbidly, uh, with the learning disabilities they present with. And that essentially, the public school's definition of LD reflects the perceptions of the on site educators in terms of which children, in their opinion, are most in need of help, and secondly would benefit from the, the services that are available in the name of special education at that particular school site.
DONALD L. MACMILLAN
I would also like to point out that LD being a rather recent newcomer to the disability listing, uh, came into existence after disability categories already had kind of carved out their turf. That is, mental retardation as already recognized as a disability category. Serious emotion disturbance or whatever term it was going by at that time also was on the books. And therefore in attempts to identify and specify criteria for a group of children who needed help but didn't quality for that help under the pre-existing categories, LD was put in the position of one saying, these are not children with sensory or physical impairments, they are not mentally retarded, they are not due to cultural, or, um, economic impoverishment. And so we have these exclusionary criteria and I want to talk about them later, because I think that essentially they are not applied rigorously when we consider cases, and put them into the LD category. Lastly, with the reauthorization in 1997, a new exclusion was really brought on the books. And that was that children were not to be identified as learning disabled who simply had not been exposed to adequate instruction up until that time. So in addition to the other disability categories, and the cultural and linguistic issues, the issue of a lack of adequate instruction was brought into place. Again, a rather difficult thing for us to document when we start to exclude children from the particular category. This is the familiar definition of learning disabilities we put on. In red what I tried to do was to highlight some of the exclusions. And the two that I want to focus on, primarily and the talk today, deal with the excluding children who are mentally retarded. And excluding children due to economic or cultural deprivation. And you'll notice at the bottom I just made the note, that nowhere in the Federal definition is the issue of severe discrepancy really presented.
DONALD L. MACMILLAN
Let me make a distinction. This represents one of several authoritative definitions of mental, uh, of, uh, learning disability. What we also have, though, what we qualify children, are the classification criteria. That is, after the definition is put in place, then it's kind of a toss up, you go to each and every state and ask the state what are the criteria you are going to employ in establishing whether or not a child is eligible, uh, as LD? Some have described the increase in the public school identification rate of LD as being of epidemic proportions. These figures, and I think Dan may comment on this later, between the period of the full implementation of the public law in 1990 to '93, we see a hundred and ninety eight percent increase in the number of children being identified as LD throughout the country. And the explanations for this have varied quite a bit. Uh, Dan Hallahan in the paper, um, posited that part of that is the fact that we've simply matured as a field. And the diagnostic process has become improved, and therefore we're now able to detect cases that heretofore have been undetected. Uh, he also pointed to the increase in what is referred to as the new morbidity. A term Al Valmeister (SP?) had introduced, looking at some of it (STAMMERS) effected development of children, in it's most extreme forms may result in severe forms of retardation, but possibly milder forms result in a little less, um, pronounced manifestation and it might present as a learning disability. Reed Lion (SP?) was quoted in the L.A. Times as characterizing LD as basically not being a disability, but rather being a failure of general education. In which he characterized it as a sociological sponge that soaks up the failures of general education. And some of the work that we have done at UC Riverside, um, would suggest that children are knowingly classified as LD who the public schools know full well probably better fit the definition of mental retardation or emotional disturbance. Let me go to the process that is prescribed under IDEA, which the schools are compelled to follow, even though we as researchers sometimes do not have to. And that is, when we see children in the public schools who experience severe under achievement, we typically try to provide them with some rather less intense interventions that would be available in special education.
DONALD L. MACMILLAN
So if the youngster is in a school where Chapter One funds are available, we might provide some support under that. Or in the name of pre-referral intervention, try certain interventions that can be implemented by a regular class teacher, at least within the regular class context. If youngsters respond to those treatments, they obviously remain in the regular tract as a normal student, so to speak. If they fail, however, frequently they are then, at that point, referred for formal assessment to find out what does this child qualify for in terms of special (STAMMERS) education services, if anything? If the child is found ineligible, presuming they go back into the regular class, however, if in fact they are found eligible as mentally retarded, as learning disabled, as emotion disturbed, or one of the other designations, they are now able to go for special education. Our experience would indicate, in the data that we have reported in a number of different publications, when children are found to be in in need of help, the are almost invariably classified as learning disabled. Uh, we have found youngsters with IQ's as low as 53 still being called learning disabled. When I came into this field, that, I saw down syndrome children inevitably classified and put in programs for trainable mentally retarded. As my career proceeded, they came into programs for educable mentally retarded. Several years ago I'm involved in a court case in Connecticut and going out to the schools, to different school sites, every LD, or every down syndrome child I saw was in an LD class room, or an LD program. So the field has changed in terms of who is in what programs, and LD, it's going to be my contention, is basically the being operationalized in the school as absolute low achievement, not discrepant low achievement, and frequently that absolute low achievement is accompanied by expected under achievement because of a low, uh, IQ score acing that. We've tried to simplify this in some of the research we've done in trying to characterize what is the school doing? Is it, in fact, lawful?
DONALD L. MACMILLAN
What we've tried to do is to break it into three stages. One is, a youngster, no matter what IQ, achievement discrepancy they might present with, will never get into the educational system special ed programs unless they are referred by their teacher or by their parent. Referral is a key element in this. (WORD?) years ago, said it's the most important element with these judgmental categories. (WORD?) Sigmond has commented similarly on the importance of teacher referral, and in some cases it can be by a parent as well. Frequently that is more apparent in upper and middle class families. Once referred, the assessment process comes into place. And it has been hammered heavily in the mental retardation literature over the years in terms of IQ testing, and eligibility criteria. But essentially the child is (STAMMERS) secondly assessed to find out if in fact they're eligible. And then thirdly this goes to a committee as prescribed by IDEA, where it's to be a team decision, not an individual decision. Not based on simply psychometric profiles. But the team considers whether or not this youngster should be served in special education. At each of these three stages, it's been our contention that different norms apply. When a teacher makes a determination to refer, that teacher typically uses local norms. That is, comparison to regular class peers, is this youngster's achievement so deficient that they are not keeping up with the other kids in the class? Or some absolute norms that the teacher might have. This is where a second grader ought to be at this time, if they are not there, and they sufficiently deviate, the decision refer may take place. The second stage, national norms come into play.
DONALD L. MACMILLAN
In which the psychologist administering the test compares that child's performance, on both intelligence and in achievement, to national norms of how children are doing. And establishes whether they meet the criteria specified in the state, which usually requires across most states a severe discrepancy. And thirdly, when it goes to the committee, the local norms that the teacher considered, the national norms the psychologist considered, and socio-cultural factors enter into the decision. Unfortunately, some of our special ed teachers are not that good. And when teachers see a kid saying, Suzy really qualifies, we think they would benefit in the best of all worlds. But you know what? At this school it's not the best of all worlds. Our special ed teacher is weak. A teacher might decide to keep the youngster in general ed, feeling that they will be better served there, and I don't think that's an unwise kind of decision. But at each of these stages what we see is a degree of subjectivity enters into the process. The teacher's decision to refer, whether or not a divorce accounts for the child being upset, and therefore we shouldn't place him or her, fits into the process as well, and some of the suspected issues of gender and race might enter into it as well. Okay, and finally, we've characterized these stages in a paper that Kathy Boshun (SP?) is the senior author of, um, saying at stage one it's an issue of relativity. How does this perform relative to classmates? The second stage, one of acceptability. Is this level of performance acceptable in terms of is it congruent with what we would base, expect based on their performance in mathematics, let's say, or an IQ test. And finally at the last stage, that of profitability. If we put the youngster into special education, what is the likelihood they will profit from it compared to what they're doing at the, in the regular class. With both Gary and my interest in mental retardation, one of the things that has jumped out at us over the years is trying to find out where these youngsters who used to be classified as mentally retarded turned up.
DONALD L. MACMILLAN
And low and behold, one thing we're finding is many of them are cropping up in LD programs. We have been engaged in a project where we have taken children referred to student study teams, doing psychometric work ups on the children, applying research criteria to it, that is reflecting the California criteria for learning disabilities and mental retardation. And then looking at what the school does with the child. So if we look across the top, the research diagnostic categories, we use an IQ of 75 or lower to put the youngster into the category of mental retardation, having very low achievement in getting referred. The borderline group is really a, a throw back to the old borderline mental retardation group, which used to go up to IQ 85. So we have that group although it's truncated 75 to 85. Then children with LD, which in California requires a standard, uh, discrepancy of one and a half standard deviations. And then we have kids that don't meet any of the criteria. What you can see here in the red are what we consider errors. That is, if you take the research diagnostic criteria, and say those are right, then look at what the school does with it. What we have our a number of children who are mentally retarded, and borderline IQ children who are non-discrepant in their achievement. What you see here are the red cases that have either been left in general education, with no special ed services, or have been classified as learning disabled. And a substantial number. What you'll notice, the one blue thing is the children with IQs under 76, 81 in number, only six were classified as mentally retarded by the public schools. The rest were either LD, put into one of the other categories, or unserved. We'll also point out that 54 percent of the children in our sample, which is a well represented sample of the kids referred to student study teams. 54 percent had IQs of 85 or lower. Suggesting that in what are fairly urban school districts, that the children who are most difficult to teach in the perception of teachers, in terms of who they refer, many of them are low cognitive children. Whether there are a number of discrepant low achievers who don't get referred, we can't say from our project.
DONALD L. MACMILLAN
I think that is a Beta set which is absent to special education literature. I don't know anybody who has really looked at the magnitude of an un-referred group of children who meet the criteria for LD or for mild mental retardation. We looked at just the cases who had IQs below 75. In our first run, look at the first hundred and fifty out of three hundred and twenty eight cases. This is how they came out. You will notice, again, our classic six cases, um, that that class that is mentally retarded. But a majority of those cases getting put into the LD category. And let me comment a little bit here. Why is it that the schools ignore the criteria specified in the California Education Code from our data, and the exclusionary criteria? Jay Gottlieb has commented on the New York City situation, of saying we're simply looking at scant resources that could be made available for kids who are struggling. And the schools are tending to overlook some of the criteria in order to get those scant resources that kids need in help. Lori Sheppard commenting on the Colorado situation made the observation that teachers and the school's personnel would be more adamant in implementing some of these criteria, if they didn't feel that denying eligibility was denying the needed help that a child has. And we were told by the teachers we worked with then, they said, you guys at the university are more concerned with what kind of kid it is, we're really more concerned with what to do with them. And therefore we don't agonize as much over which pigeonhole to put them in, we're more concerned with how are we going to teach them reading? How are we going to teach them math? How are we going to teach them life skills? One of the things that seems to me to have happened, is that the importance of differential diagnosis, of is the kid really LD, are they MR? Uh, has changed over the years. When I was back to the 1960s, when I entered this field, we agonized over is the kid LD or MR? And one of the reasons was, that at that time, the eligibility criteria had profound implications for where the kid would be taught, and what they would be taught. If you were called MR, if you look at the Robinson And Robinson checks published in 1965, they said mild MR kids are educated in special day classes. End of debate. So if you were called mildly retarded, you were typically put into a special day class, and you got a functional curriculum.
DONALD L. MACMILLAN
Conversely, if you were called LD toward the end of that decade, you typically were taught in a resource kind of setting, and remediation of skills was emphasized. When we go to the public schools today, and ask the situation around the turn of the century, they say it's irrelevant. It doesn't matter what we called them, because placement is going to be determined in terms of LRE. So we can take a kid who's IQ is however low you want to look at it, call them LD, we can still put them into a special day class, and conversely in terms of the treatment, we can give them a functional curriculum in the IEP negotiation. So that the importance of the classification category for the child is not as important today as it was back at an earlier point in time. Nevertheless it results in considerable variability in terms of the number of kids that are LD and the nature of it. Taking out, and this is, this is twenty second annual report, not the twentieth, they'll look at extreme states. In Georgia we're looking at three point two eight percent of their school children being called LD. Conversely in Rhode Island where over a nine and a half percent of their kids being called LD. This kind of variability reflects probably variations in criteria. Some states use a standard (WORD?) discrepancy of one versus one and a half standard evasion. Some are regress discrepancy. If you look at the Cecil Mertze's (SP?) work, um, and the surveys that he has done of the state criteria, you see considerable variability across states in the LD criteria, um, implemented. We also see variability in terms of gender, with a split of approximately 60 to 40. Yet when we look at the Shaywitze's (SP?) data from Connecticut, there is no gender difference. True in the MR category, where we've always had it, the gender difference in favor of males, being in favor means that you're more likely to be identified. Uh, work that Dan Reschly did in Arizona showed again, when you apply a psychometric profile, that gender difference disappears. So there are other contextual factors operating in terms of who gets into the system, and who gets classified into what, uh, category. Let me turn my attention to say, when we see this confound of mental retardation and learning disability, it presents several problems to us.
DONALD L. MACMILLAN
The work that Jay Gottlieb has done in New York City, in comparing LD kids in the inner city to LD kids in suburban school districts. When we looked at the mental retardation, um, situation, mental retardation is being reserved for only the most patently disabled children. And we're seeing the same thing in California, we saw the same thing in Connecticut. If a youngster was classified as mentally retarded, I think that most of us would agree that youngster does have severe problems. In LD we see a slightly different case. Also the fact that the condition of mild mental retardation is a phenomenon almost exclusively of low social class. And let me just go to the next thing. This is a, a table that was presented, um, in the case of Marshal Versus Georgia in which Dan Reschly was one of the expert witnesses testifying. I want to point out to you here, the blue part of the bar indicates a form of mental retardation where the IQ is below 50, and where there is central nervous system involved and apparent. The red bar is where IQ is above 50, and central nervous system is evident in the case. Such as Cerebral Palsy with low functioning. And the green form, the one of interest to us here, is a form of mental retardation where the IQ is higher than 50, and there's no apparent evidence of central nervous system damage. The social case categories to up from top to bottom. The top being the highest, down to the bottom being the lowest. And what is apparent here, as you move down and get to the lower social classes, is green form. Low I, or IQ above 50, but with no central nervous system damaged becomes more and more apparent, and more dominant.
DONALD L. MACMILLAN
Okay, this study was done in Aberdeen Scotland with all White subjects. So we don't have the confound of race that we have in many of the studies done in this country. We've long known that this form of mental retardation is linked to low social class, and heaven knows what causal factors that are associated with low social class. You don't see it in the suburban schools. And it's primarily a function of the more urban schools. You can go to the next thing. And if Gottlieb looked at the classification of the (STAMMERS) urban children, the most here, the mean IQ in the suburb and urban schools are about the same, 54 and 55. Much lower than what it was in the '60s where we'd had a much higher mean IQ for our MR category. In a survey done in 1992, the mean IQ in the urban setting for the LB children now (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to 81. But in the suburban school district, the mean IQ for the LD's was over a hundred and two. So in terms of intellectual functioning, an urban LD and a suburban LD look like quite different children in terms of the aptitude level. On a survey done in 1984, 41 percent of the children classified as LD in the New York Public schools had IQ scores between 70 and 85. That old borderline category of mental retardation. An additional seven point five percent had IQs below 70. And still were classified as LD. And here again, just further confirmation of it, if you look at 16 percent in another survey had IQs of less than 70. And it's not just in terms of aptitude that the urban LD kids differ. When we look further at his data, in a school district with high degrees of poverty, you had 80 percent of the students in the districts living in poverty. 90 percent of the LD students in the New York Public schools are on some form of public assistance for their families.
DONALD L. MACMILLAN
But 95 percent of the LD kids were minority group children. Let me just say for perspective, 93 percent of the district students are minorities, so this is not a statistically significant difference. But 19 percent were from foreign born, were foreign born, and 44 percent of them came from families where English was not the primary language spoken. Now just submit to you, it does not appear that the exclusionary criteria for LD are being rigorously applied in New York City schools. If cultural and economic properties do exclude you from eligibility, if mental retardation is to exclude you from eligibility for LD, it's not being rigorously opposed. Conversely, I would argue, the New York public schools are saying we got a group of kids who need help, and we're gonna help them. And what we have found in our research is that once they make that commitment, they say, okay, you guys with IDEA are going to make us go through the eligibility criteria by applying these, these tests. We'll do it, but you know what? We can do creative financing with them. We're going to find the child eligible if we think that kid needs help, to the point where we have found one discrepancy that qualified a kid for eligible was between an achievement test score and a Peers Harris. (SP?) And the schools are not that dumb. They know what they're doing. And they're saying, we know this kid is mentally retarded, there's no upside to classifying him or her as mentally retarded.
DONALD L. MACMILLAN
We can take care of that in the IEP, and an LRE, and LD is a much more acceptable definition in classification for children. Yet that presents problems, because we do see this disconnect between what the research criteria are supposed to be for LD, and the characteristics of the children currently being served in the public school as LD. There are several things with this that strike me as problematic with what we are doing now. One is with the one time only assessment that we do to qualify a child. When we get a low achievement test score, interpreting that becomes difficult. The new exclusionary criteria where it should not be due to inadequate instruction comes up here. Call your attention to some work that Shep Callum (SP?) has done in the Baltimore Public Schools. Now his interest was more in psychopathology, but nevertheless, they were actually able to randomly assign first grade children to teachers within the Baltimore Public Schools in his research. And what they found was, after a short period of time, about six weeks, the distribution of behavior problems in those first grade classes was bimodal. Either all hell broke loose, or they were pretty well under control. The interesting thing, when they filed them longitudinally, the kids that were in the classes where all hell broke loose, carried that with them into middle school. They were still misbehaving in middle school. And he characterized these first grade classes where all hell broke loose as chaotic classrooms. Now as I say, his interest was primarily psychopathology. John Reed from the University Or Oregon really, recently reanalyzed some of their data that they had, and found the same thing held for reading. When a teacher can't control the class, they probably don't provide a real stimulating reading program either.
DONALD L. MACMILLAN
And these kids were significantly lower in reading in these chaotic classrooms. Now, as we look at the urban settings, more unqualified, or marginally qualified teachers are functioning there with kids who are more dependant on the instructional skills of their teacher. Recently was out at a school in San Bernadino, California. Out of 18 elementary teachers in this, in this school, 16 were uncertified. That doesn't give these kids a fair chance. And when we just go in with an achievement test, an intelligence test, ruling out that as a contributing factor seems to be the extremely difficult, and it gets a little touchy when you start saying, you know what? It was Siperstein that, there was a teacher last year, we know he can't teach. Therefore we'll put that exclusionary criteria in. When you say in concluding, some of the things that seem in place, one we've characterized what's gone on at the schools as kind of a titration of intensities. Where we try pre-referral intervention, chapter one services. If that doesn't result in some improvement in performing, we then go to assessments and put them into special education. Try resource rooms, if that doesn't work, special day class. And we keep titrating until we get a response to our treatment approach. Since the IQ issue is central to some of the issues that ought to be discussed in this conference and elsewhere. I think the biggest condemnation of it is that the intelligence test, as used now, has no curricular validity. It doesn't give us any direction as to what to do with the child. It may tell us which pigeonhole to put them in, but then it doesn't add any information to it, in terms of how to instruct the child. So for classification purposes, one might defend it. For curricular purposes it seems very weak.
DONALD L. MACMILLAN
I've indicated before, in differential diagnosis, we don't seem to be using it as an important fact. We made the call of LD, saying that we can take care of that later. So distinguishing between mental retardation and learning disabilities, IQ doesn't seem to be of central importance to the public's (WORD?) And finally in using it to apply exclusionary criteria again, we don't see any evidence it is being used in a systematic way, and therefore I find little purpose, given the expense of administering intelligence tests that we currently have, and it's lack of relevancy in instructional program, to continue and use it as a criterion for LD. I think also we must recognize comorbidity. We see many children who not only have a reading problem, but they have a behavior problem. The current system in special ed, and under IDE puts a kid into one hole and one hole only. But we find retarded kids who are behavior disordered. We find kids with reading problems who also act out. If there is a linkage of treatments to labels, teachers naively assume that this kid, because they're LD, only presents with a reading problem. And frequently they don't, they present with a multitude of problems that have to be addressed in the IEP and in the instructional program. And I guess recognizing the fact that IDEA plays out very differently in urban from suburban school districts is essential. Or we have the naive assumption that we can read a study done by Gottlieb in New York City, and generalize to an affluent middle class community in terms of what LD kids are like. And then I guess, finally, before sitting down and let others take the heat, um, I think the assumption of a neurological basis for the learning problem is irrelevant to the educational program we have, and ought to be deleted from the definition.
DONALD L. MACMILLAN
And I guess the abolishment of the severe discrepancy. We don't see that being a criterion. Absolute low achievement is what we're seeing put in the public schools and classified as LD. Thank you very much, and I think I made it under half hour.
DEBORAH PRAISSON-STAT
Thank you Dr. MacMillan. We will now hear from our respondents. And please remember to save your questions until the end of the session. Our first respondent is Dr. Michael Gerber who is a full professor and director of the Center For Advanced Studies Of Individual Differences at the University Of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Gerber has conducted research on early acquisition of basic skills by student with learning disabilities, school implementation of special education policy. And applications of computer technology to remediation, teacher training, and assessments.
MICHAEL GERBER
Thank you, good morning. (CLEARS THROAT) I was so anxious yesterday about staying on time that I forgot to say that I really enjoyed the paper by, uh, Dr. MacMillan and Dr. Siperstein. I congratulate them on a great effort. Um, we're going to use individualized, uh, slides today, which means that you can conjure up any image of a slide that is relevant to what I'm saying, in your mind. It would be axiomatic, uh, should be axiomatic that decision making in schools is different from the judgement processes that we associate with psychological measurement, testing and research, pertaining to learning disability. It should be axiomatic, but it seems that we are not able to get past this fact. If you're going to make progress not merely in identifying, but also in better educating students with learning disability, we will need to invest more intelligently on research on the schools that do the identifying, and hopefully the educating. I mean, that knowing more about learning disability in the absence of more detailed knowledge about the structure of decision making in schools will not yield a sufficient basis for improved policy. Is it possible that we are so distracted by the fact that different teachers in different schools identify students with different characteristics as learning disabled, that we fail to recognize a lawfulness that meets the variability? Another way to ask this question is this, why is it so difficult to reliably scale what we believe are valid classification and intervention practices to the level of whole schools, districts and states. I was going to say everyone has a theory about this. But the fact is, that everyone has an opinion about this. We really have no theory whatsoever.
MICHAEL GERBER
Typically we assume that variability of identification rates across large units of analysis represent error variance. However, error variance in this kind of formulation rarely means idiosyncratic or random. It simply means that there's a portion of observed variability for which our models cannot account. A portion of variability that remains unexplained, but in principal not unexplainable. What is it that a good theory and the research it would guide should include? First, a good theory of identification of learning disability would account for decisions by teachers. There is very little imperial data to support the argument that simple and easily correctable variations in local staff, or more specifically, variations in their training, ethics, or competence can account for much or most of the observed variations in incidents. Specifically we need to understand not decisions to formerly refer students as possible learning disabled, but rather the formative decision making that leads from instructional choices, to modifications, to perplexity, to expressed concern. The following, the, the thinking that follows this general root, and the forces that act on it, are not well understood at all. We believe that some of it may be stimulated by objective characteristics of students. But surely there are other factors was well, factors related to teachers knowledge of subject matter perhaps. Or knowledge of pedagogy. Or ability to form mental models of students as a basis for planning and revising instruction. Or the ability to reformulate models of students based on instructional experiences. Second, a good theory of identification would account for decisions that may be quite distill from the classroom. These factors are organizational in nature.
MICHAEL GERBER
They concern not only policies and mechanisms of administration, but also the optimizing and (SOUNDS LIKE) satisficing strategies or solutions that undergird policy and administrative practice. Moreover, these organizational factors create the structure within which teacher decision making occurs. They act as critical constraints on teachers decision making. Such as when, uh, externally imposed reforms involving curriculum standards, uh, high stakes testing, or performer basic countability are imposed. Organizational factors also include algorithms, some only implicit, for allocating resources. Especially and most importantly teacher attention, time, and effort. Three year agos, three years ago in California, some colleagues and I studied regional variability in incidents of disabilities for the office of (STAMMERS) a legislative analyst, the Department Of Education and the Department Of Finance. The Department Of Finance in this research project, specifically insisted that we not study what they perceive to be idiosyncratically variable disability categories. Particularly learning disability. Instead they prescribe that we study only severe, medically identified, or other high cost and low incidents disabilities. In other words, they wanted us to study disabilities that were, to them, not only indisputable, but also in some sense distributed in the population by chance. Why, what they failed to recognize however, was that (WORD?) are not distributed across the landscape of California by chance alone. Nor are our quality of schools. Preschools, or school staffs, or sources of tax revenue, or job opportunities, or housing, or availability of medical services. So it was no surprise to us when we found huge regional variations and incidents of low incidence disabilities.
MICHAEL GERBER
Regardless of how we modeled low incidence disabilities. Regardless of how we modeled the definition or the composition of severe disabilities. These results are consistent with earlier findings from samples of states, districts in the same state or metropolitan areas. However contrary to earlier findings from national or state data, uh, we found, uh, that measures of poverty or ethnicity provided no explanation for observed variability in the incidence of low incidents disability across California regions. However, a small portion of variability was, of severe disability was explained by incidents of students with limited English proficiency. Possibly indexing the relative poverty and lower social status of California's large immigrant population and their lack of access to health care. When severity was modeled in terms of higher than normal costs, 48 percent of that variability was explained, as expected, by percentage of low incidence disabilities, uh, enrolled. But also by district's resource capacities, and the degree to which regions were urbanized. These results are only a start, of course, but I suggest that they strongly indicate that there are complex organizational features of schooling that systematically influence identification rates and service levels, over and above any confusion we have about definition, identification models, or psychometric instruments.
DEBORAH PRAISSON-STAT
Thank you Dr. Gerber. Our next respondent is Dr. Dan Reschly who is a professor of education and a of psychology at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. There he has chaired the Department Of Special Education. DR. Reschly has published on topics of school psychology, professional practices, systems reform, assessments of disability with minority children and of youth, and legal issues in special education. Welcome.
DANIEL J. RESCHLY
Thank you it's an honor to be part of this summit, and particularly the comment on the paper by MacMillan and Siperstein, a really fine piece of work. Minority over representation in special education is a significant but often unrecognized contributor to 25 years of increasing LD prevalence, and of the current diagnostic confusion over what LD is. It does work. I will not elaborate on the changes in prevalence over the last 25 years. MacMillan did a very fine job with that. I will point out, however, that the changes in mild mental retardation are probably greater than those shown by the official OSEP figures. The reason for that is, that after 1976, '77, students with moderate, severe, and profound levels mental retardation in many, many places throughout the United States gained access to the public schools for the first time. Thus the decline in mental retardation is even greater for the mild level of mental retardation. Now before we go too far with discussions of state prevalence, I'm sorry, of national prevalence, we need to recognized the enormous variations among the states. States use different names of disabilities, different conceptual definitions, and different classification criteria. That turns into enormous variations in prevalence of high incidence disabilities across the states. MR prevalence varies by a factor of nine, that is the highest state versus the lower state is different by a factor of nine. LD by a factor of three. ED by a factor of 33. The highest state, highest state prevalence in ED is Minnesota, which carries about a two percent prevalence. The lowest, I believe, is in Mississippi, which has about a half a percent prevalence. I guess it shows that the persistent severe cold temperatures have a substantial impact. So analysis of disability prevalence has to take a state by state as well as a national perspective. Now the reasons for the declining mild mental retardation, mild MR, uh, prevalence have been discussed elsewhere. I made a living doing that in the 1980s. And if you're interested in that, I'd be happy to send you a reprint, in fact I'd be flattered if anybody asked. Um, over representation litigation had direct and indirect influences on that decline. In fact, I think over representation litigation was the greatest, uh, influence. Massive declassification generally followed consent decrees.
DANIEL J. RESCHLY
For example, the (SP?) Deeana Consent Decree in California, Guadeloupe and Arizona, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the holiday descent decree in Mississippi, producing markedly lower MR prevalence and contributing significantly to L, increased LD prevalence. One current effect of the over representation litigation is the reluctance to use the mild mental retardation category, which MacMillan has described very well. The kind of declassification experience in California, Mississippi, Arizona, and other places experienced in the 1970's and 80's is less frequent today. It is occurring as we speak, in the state of Alabama, which is under a consent decree called (SOUNDS LIKE) Lee V. Macon, which is, establishes considerably more stringent and mild mental retardation, uh, classification criteria. You could expect, by the December first report in 2002, to see increasing incidents in LD in that state, and markedly lower MR. Declassification pressures also come from OCR investigations of districts. Now LD is generally not implicated in current discussions of national over representation, and I present data here on the OCR rates, um, uh, for different disabilities. I urge you to distinguish between a composition index, and a risk index, and I'll be happy to send this table for explanation. Uh, if, if you're interested. Only a small proportion of minority students, and this is the point I wish to emphasize, only a small proportion of minority students are in special education. And the difference in the proportion of minority students in special ed is relatively small. The highest incidents of minority students in special education have the greatest disproportionately, or about two point six three percent of the highest incidence group is in, uh, that, that category.
DANIEL J. RESCHLY
Scholars associated with the NICHD Dyslexia studies program concluded that IQ testing and ability achievement discrepancy determination contribute little to identifying appropriate groups for reading interventions. A position that I strongly agree with. Moreover, use of the discrepancy model to identify LD produces a way to fail kind of phenomenon that I think everybody is now familiar with. The NICHD recommendations suggest universal early screening with early intervention. One likely effect of early screening is the identification of a relatively high proportion of students as needing early intervention. They suggest as many as 25 percent. And many more females as having low reading achievement being identified receiving early interventions, perhaps eliminating the current LD, uh, ratio, male to female ration of about two to one. (CLEARS THROAT) Now, and anticipated and unanticipated effect of early screening not discussed today, is the virtually inevitable outcome of identifying a markedly disproportionate number of students as needing early reading interventions. If the early interventions prevent reading disabilities, with a high proportion of students, and are differentially even more effective with minority students, then current patterns of over representation could diminish. However, if the early interventions have the effect of raising (STAMMERS) reading achievement generally, but continuing to preserve approximately the same distribution, the same relative levels of achievement, then the universal early screening could very easily have the effect of greater minority over representation, and moving that minority over representation to the field of learning disabilities. The reason this would occur is that early, universal early screening is more efficient in identifying children with low achievement as opposed to the very imperfect procedures of teacher referral today.
DANIEL J. RESCHLY
The higher minority identification rates are likely to occur with the universal early screening because the current system identifies fewer minority students as disabled, than those who would be eligible if universal screening measures were applied. Now the greater (WORD?) early screening is likely to increase over representation will also depend on whether national or local norms are used. If national norms are used, the early screening proportions are going to be even more disproportionate. Here's the critical point, the acceptability of great disproportionality will depend entirely on outcomes. If there are good outcomes from disproportionately identified numbers of persons in early intervention, it will not be a problem. If, however, there are mediocre or poor outcomes, and it simply serves as the way of identifying more kids who end up being, quote, disabled, then there will be severe difficulties associated with that. Special education outcomes were the principal issue in the over representation litigation, although most commentators focused on IQ tests and other aspects of assessment. The point was made clear by the (WORD?) trial judge in a later commentary on the case, when he said, the 1979 decision was largely concerned with, quote, the harm to African America children resulting from improper placement in dead end educational programs. The greatest challenge to special education is to show that programs are effective and that they make a difference in improving academic skills and opportunities. There are, I forgot about this, there are system reforms underway today that emphasize noncategorical eligibility, elimination of IQ and IQ achievement discrepancies, functional assessment of formative evaluation, and student performances with basis for special education decisions. There are significant parallels as well as differences in recent history of mild MR and LD.
DANIEL J. RESCHLY
Both are high incidence disability categories that are rarely identified before school entrance. LD is the current dominant category in special education. A position held by mild MR until the late 1970s. Over representation litigation based on concerns about (WORD?) and program effectiveness lead to a sharp decline in mild MR. Current LD practices and identification trends have similar problems to the mild MR programs in the 1960s and 1970s, specifically problems in demonstrating positive outcomes, and concerns about stigma. Reforms to address these trends, especially improving outcomes, will determine whether LD follows the mild MR path. Thank you.
DEBORAH PRAISSON-STAT
Thank you Dr. Reschly. Our final respondent is Dr. Martha Brooks who is director of the Exceptional Children And Early Childhood Group at the Delaware Department Of Education. She is a parent of three sons, one of whom has severe disabilities. Dr. Brooks is a member of the board of directors of the National Association Of State Directors Of Special Education. Welcome Dr. Brooks.
MARTHA BROOKS
Thank you and good morning. I am honored to have the opportunity to be a respondent to this particular paper, but I've also had the, the pleasure of being part of this activity from it's inception a year ago, and I can't tell you how exciting it is to actually be here and listen to all of these papers being presented. To meet all of the authors that I have read over the past, uh, several months. It's been a very exciting couple of days for me. But I want to start my various brief, um, comments this morning by issuing you a challenge. 'Cause I think it's not so much what we're learning over this two days that's as important as what we're going to do with it, uh, in the future. That is, is really the heart of this issue. And I would challenge us all that we need to continue this discussion 'til we find a solution where there are no losers, and all children have the opportunity to learn. A solution where as to, to quote Bob, our new leader, uh, no child will be left behind. But I think he was quoting some other new leader with that particular, um, quote. But I think it really is an important one, and I think it's one we need to keep in mind. Whatever we do to, to change, to refine, to, to work with, uh, a definition of learning disabilities and how we implement special education services for our children. We cannot forget that the goal is to leave no child behind, and to make sure that all children have a real opportunity for an education. This was one of my favorite papers out of the nine, because it, it clarifies the reality of the world in which I live. It talks about research identified students with learning disabilities, and it talks about school identified children with learning disabilities.
MARTHA BROOKS
And as you can tell from the discussions that are going on around here, they are somewhat different. And I would ask, I'm going to read one sentence out of their paper that I think kind of sums it up from a, a practitioners perspective that you take away with you. We urge recognition of one reality driving the public school's focus on planning for services. That is, they are going to continue to serve those students they perceive to be most in need of help. That is not going to change. And I think, um, you heard a very good description by Dr. MacMillan of how that definition of who are the children most in need varies by school, and sometimes by class room, and certainly by district and by state. I want to very briefly comment on what I think are some of the significant points that need to be kept in the forefront of further discussion. One is that critical role of teacher referral. Children are referred because teachers do not feel children are meeting the expectations of the norm of their class and or their school. Teachers are concerned that they themselves are not meeting the needs of the child, and the further the child is from the norm of the class, the more likely that referral will be. That is a reality that sends us some incredibly important professional development messages. We need teachers who have more skills, both in terms of correctly diagnosing and helping children in their classes, but having the skills to know how to help. Get them the kinds of programs that they need that will be effective. Another point that I found very interesting that I want to keep in the forefront of my head, because it periodically surfaces in, in cases that I deal with in, in the states, and that's the false negative concept. Uh, a group, the false negative group is a concern to researchers but it's also a concern to advocates and educators and parents.
MARTHA BROOKS
In the sense that these are children that do have a disability, and yet because they are able to keep up they are not identified for special education services. This group is becoming more critical as the high stakes nature of accountability in our public schools moves up. We're seeing more and more of these children with, uh, a count five oh four accommodation plan, and in some cases parents pushing to get them into special education services in, in part because of the benefits that they will get in terms of accommodations on testing programs, to be very honest. It's not a group we want to ignore, and one that we really want to pay attention to. Uh, the eligibility of the sessions have been very informative and, and, uh, I will just comment that I have yet to find a psychologist who cannot find a discrepancy somewhere if they really need to. And for the most part, the recommendations for eligibility center that a team makes center on whether or not the student will benefit from services of eligibility will make available for them. And as long as that is the reality, let's deal with that, and not worry, um, quite so much about how we get to, to that point. The early childhood focus I was pleased to hear a little more mention today, actually, than I heard yesterday, and maybe I was just listening, uh, the third time I go through this presentation I'll pick up something else, yeah. Um, but I, I really think that we need to really pull back and focus more on, on early childhood and, because that's part of my responsibility in the department, I spend a lot of time with our three, four, and, uh, five year old head start programs, we have a state head start program that I also oversee. And I think getting the screening and the services into those programs is equally important.
MARTHA BROOKS
And though a lot of the discussion that you're hearing starts with kindergarten, I think there is some very valid research that talks about what kinds of things can be happening for children three and four years of age. And I think they will have a very critical impact if we can put some of those things in place, in preventing more severe levels of disability for children as they enter the school system. The mental retardation thing has been very well discussed, and I'm not going to spend any more time on it other than to say, I learned a lot in, in reading several of these articles in helping me to understand how that should, because I kind of lived through it in the trenches. And to see it all pulled together and explained made a lot of sense to me as to why we're where we are today. I just think it's something that we need to, to, uh, keep, again, in the forefront of our thinking. The poverty in the urban schools, and the disproportionality, uh, Dad did a wonderful job of explaining. And I think those are realities in my state. We have a population that is in our public schools across the entire state, 30 percent minority. And so these issues are very, very real in every single school in our state. And they're, they're ones that we wrestle with all of the time. But I want to kind of focus on what I think is one that has been touched on, but I, I really want to emphasize from a, a practitioners perspective. LD is an okay label. In our society today it is okay to be identified as having a learning disability. It is a label that parents, teachers, and society at large do not object to, and it opens doors to services including accommodations and modifications that have increased importance in high stakes world. Eligibility determination requires identification under one of the IDEA categories, that's all it requires. But the (WORD?) has very little meaning in terms of what's in a child's IET, and the programs and services that child is provided.
MARTHA BROOKS
It is a way to open the door. So putting on a categorical label, if we have to do that, that is comfortable and that people like. Uh, or are more comfortable with. I'm not sure that people like it, but they are more comfortable with it, it's more acceptable, is it just makes everyone's life a lot easier. If you go back to the underlying theme in this article, that schools are already identifying students who need the help the most under the LD category, you can begin to see that unless we develop ways to ensure supports and services for all children who need it in order to be effective learners, we will continue to serve those most in need within special education. With a continued focus on high standards and accountability for all students, the number of children referred to special ed will continue to grow. A couple of comments on the proposed models that the authors came up with. The only place I really disagreed with them here is that they, they push for more definitive labels. I'm kind of at a point in my life where I'd like to see the labels go away and talk about building programs based on the needs of children. IPT members including parents are not going to be any more accepting of concepts or terms such as low general intelligence, or environmental disadvantage, um, than they are currently of mental retardation and emotional disturbance. Those are just not, uh, they're more negative sounding terms, and that's how they are interpreted. We need to ask ourselves if we can meet the needs of children in public schools, and those of researchers wishing to study specific processing to the cultures with the same eligibility process. And what I challenge you to think about, do we need to? Do we even want to? Although we understand and appreciate the value of research in terms of improving education for children with disabilities, we may be better served by adding some additional research dollars to provide assessment at the (STAMMERS) discrimination level researchers need, and allow assessments for access to services (STAMMERS) in public schools to be driven by the needs of the child and the instructional process.
MARTHA BROOKS
We do have other forms of accountability, but they're not, the IDEA and within state's accountability legislation, which will help to keep, um, some control on numbers and things like that. Focusing our efforts on improved results for all children may be a better investment of our assessment energies. The, the model that they came up with, though, is one that I, I believe in very, very strongly. They called it the Titration Of Intensity Of Treatments In Decision Making. I call it the Instructional Support Team, or the problem solving model. Which is, I probably best demonstrated in states like Iowa, Pennsylvania and Maryland. And Delaware is, is trying very hard to really beef up our ability to, to have, um, really functional problem solving teams at the school level. But the formative assessment process that is the basis of those, um, models, and which was discussed, uh, earlier, is designed to rely on an instructional problem solving team at the building level that would be looking at every child who is not performing at grade level. Interventions are planned on, by the child and the teacher, and are based on research based best practices. Plans are implemented with integrity, and data are gathered on an ongoing basis to measure the effectiveness of the intervention strategies. This curriculum based assessment, and intervention process, continues until the right combination of services and support (WORD?) for the individual child. If the level required for the child to be successful reaches the level of special education, and remember that's defined by what special ed within that school and that district, um, which may not be the same in all places, then the child would be moved into a formal referral process and be found eligible for special education services. If not, the child would still have a learning plan that would be able to support them as they moved on up through the grades. There are a number of issues, and I've run out of time so I've got to be very quick on these. And I'm going to concentrate on the one that I think is the most important, and I haven't heard brought a lot.
MARTHA BROOKS
Uh, in any of the discussions I've heard so far. And that is the role of parent involvement in this process. If we make changes in how we move children into the system, or we involve children in the system, we cannot forget the incredible partnership that special education has developed with, with parents. Many parents and advocates view this prolonged pre-referral process, or this formative assessment process as a delaying tactic. However, if they are part of the problem solving process right from the beginning, and they recognize that the needs of their child are being addressed, and the process will not stop until the right supports and services are identified, I think they can, we can develop the trust level that we need to make some of these changes. If a model such as this is implemented, children who meet the research identified definition of learning disabilities will be found. Their learning needs will be addressed, and those needing a level of supports and services that may include accommodations and or special education will be identified. However, all of the other students who need help in order to access their education and be effective learners will also receive it. Thank you.
[END OF TAPE]