ASHAWire
Advanced search
Skip main navigation
Close Drawer MenuOpen Drawer Menu
No AccessLanguage, Speech, and Hearing Services in SchoolsResearch Article23 Apr 2019

A Decade of Disproportionality: A State-Level Analysis of African American Students Enrolled in the Primary Disability Category of Speech or Language Impairment

    https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_LSHSS-17-0149

    Abstract

    Purpose

    This study aimed to determine if African American students were disproportionately represented between the years of 2004 and 2014 in the primary disability category of Speech or Language Impairment (S/LI) under the 2004 reauthorized Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act.

    Method

    S/LI enrollment data from the Office of Special Education Programs and general enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics were analyzed to compare the risk of primary S/LI category enrollment of African American students to that of all other students. Risk ratios with 99% confidence intervals were calculated for each state across the 10 years studied.

    Results

    An average of 75% of states disproportionately represented African American students in the S/LI category each year; on average, 62% underrepresented African American students, and 14% overrepresented them. A post hoc analysis of the relationship between African American student representation and population densities revealed that states with high African American population densities almost exclusively underrepresented African American students and states with low densities tended toward a proportionate representation.

    Conclusions

    African American students were largely underrepresented in the category of S/LI in the years studied. These findings, alongside historic and chronic overrepresentation in other categories of special education, are discussed in the context of the fragmented harm theory (Payne, 1984; Voulgarides, 2018; Voulgarides, Zwerger, & Noguera, 2013) and the disability rights and critical race theory (Annamma, Connor, & Ferri, 2013).

    Supplemental Material

    https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.7967024

    References

    • Annamma, S. A., Connor, D., & Ferri, B. (2013). Dis/ability critical race studies (DisCrit): Theorizing at the intersections of race and dis/ability.Race Ethnicity and Education, 16(1), 1–31.
      CrossrefGoogle Scholar
    • American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (1983). Social dialects [Position statement]. Retrieved from http://www.asha.org/policy
      Google Scholar
    • ASHA Council on Professional Standards in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology. (2000). Standards and implementation for the certificate of clinical competence in speech-language pathology. Rockville, MD: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
      Google Scholar
    • Braddock, J. H., & McPartland, J. M. (1989). Social–psychological processes that perpetuate racial segregation: The relationship between school and employment desegregation.Journal of Black Studies, 19(3), 267–289.
      CrossrefGoogle Scholar
    • Chinn, P. C., & Hughes, S. (1987). Representation of minority students in special classes.Remedial and Special Education (RASE), 8(4), 41–46.
      CrossrefGoogle Scholar
    • Clark, R., Anderson, N. B., Clark, V. R., & Williams, D. R. (1999). Racism as a stressor for African Americans: A biopsychosocial model.American Psychologist, 54(10), 805.
      CrossrefMedlineGoogle Scholar
    • Darensbourg, A., Perez, E., & Blake, J. J. (2010). Overrepresentation of African American males in exclusionary discipline: The role of school-based mental health professionals in dismantling the school to prison pipeline.Journal of African American Males in Education, 1(3), 196–211.
      Google Scholar
    • Data Accountability Center. (2014). Methods for assessing racial/ethnic disproportionality in special education: A technical assistance guide (revised). Rockville, MD: Westat.
      Google Scholar
    • De Valenzuela, J. S., Copeland, S. R., Qi, C. H., & Park, M. (2006). Examining educational equity: Revisiting the disproportionate representation of minority students in special education.Exceptional Children, 72(4), 425–441.
      Google Scholar
    • Finn, J. D. (1982). Patterns of special education placement as revealed by the OCR surveys.In K. A. Heller, W. H. Holtzman, & S. Messick (Eds.), Placing children in special education: A strategy for equity (p. 322). Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
      Google Scholar
    • Ford, D. Y. (1998). The underrepresentation of minority students in gifted education: Problems and promises in recruitment and retention.The Journal of Special Education, 32(1), 4–14.
      CrossrefGoogle Scholar
    • Heckman, J. J., & LaFontaine, P. A. (2010). The American high school graduation rate: Trends and levels.The Review of Economics and Statistics, 92(2), 244–262.
      CrossrefMedlineGoogle Scholar
    • Hehir, T. (2005). New directions in special education: Eliminating ableism in policy and practice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.
      Google Scholar
    • K. A. Heller, W. H. Holtzman, & S. Messick (Eds.) (1982). Placing children in special education: Equity through valid educational practices (final report). Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
      Google Scholar
    • Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, 20 U.S.C. § 1400 (2004).
      Google Scholar
    • Losen, D. J., & Orfield, G. (2002). Racial inequity in special education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Publishing Group.
      Google Scholar
    • Major, B., & O'Brien, L. T. (2005). The social psychology of stigma.Annual Review of Psychology, 56, 393–421.
      CrossrefMedlineGoogle Scholar
    • Markowitz, J. (2002). State criteria for determining disproportionality.Quick turn around (QTA). Retrieved from http://www.nasdse.org/forum.htm
      Google Scholar
    • Morgan, P. L., Farkas, G., Hillemeier, M. M., Mattison, R., Maczuga, S., Li, H., & Cook, M. (2015). Minorities are disproportionately underrepresented in special education: Longitudinal evidence across five disability conditions.Educational Researcher, 44(5), 278–292.
      CrossrefGoogle Scholar
    • Munk, T., O'Hara, N., & Sulzberger, L. (2017). Examining representation: Over, under, or both? (Version 1.0). IDEA Data Center. Rockville, MD: Westat.
      Google Scholar
    • National Center for Education Statistics. (2016). Education statistics elementary/secondary information system. Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/programs/osepidea/618-data/state-level-data-files/index.html#part-b-menu
      Google Scholar
    • National Forum on Education Statistics, Race/Ethnicity Data Implementation Task Force. (2008). Managing an identity crisis: Forum guide to implementing new federal race and ethnicity categories (NFES 2008-802). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.
      Google Scholar
    • Office for Civil Rights. (1978). Elementary and secondary civil rights survey. Sample selection. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health, Education, & Welfare.
      Google Scholar
    • Office of Special Education Programs. (2018). State level data files. Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/programs/osepidea/618-data/state-level-data-files/index.html#part-b-menu
      Google Scholar
    • Quillian, L. (2012). Segregation and poverty concentration: The role of three segregations.American Sociological Review, 77(3), 354–379.
      CrossrefMedlineGoogle Scholar
    • Payne, C. M. (1984). Getting what we ask for: The ambiguity of success and failure in urban education. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
      Google Scholar
    • Robinson, G. C., Hunt, L., Silva, A. & Harris, E. (2016). Perceptions of stigma across special education categories: Preliminary results of an online survey. Poster presented at the annual Arkansas chapter of the leadership education in neurodevelopmental and other childhood disabilities trainee presentations, Little Rock, AR.
      Google Scholar
    • Saaticioglu, A., & Skrtic, T. (2012). Categorical manipulation in the reproduction of organizational inequality: The case of disability categorization in schools. Denver, CO: American Sociological Association Annual Meeting.
      Google Scholar
    • Skiba, R. J., Artiles, A. J., Kozleski, E. B., Losen, D. J., & Harry, E. G. (2016). Risks and consequences of oversimplifying educational inequities: A response to Morgan et al. (2015).Educational Researcher, 45(3), 221–225.
      CrossrefGoogle Scholar
    • Skiba, R. J., Poloni-Staudinger, L., Gallini, S., Simmons, A. B., & Feggins-Azziz, R. (2006). Disparate access: The disproportionality of African American students with disabilities across educational environments.Exceptional Children, 72(4), 411–424.
      CrossrefGoogle Scholar
    • Southern Education Foundation. (2016). Race and ethnicity in a new era of public funding of private schools: Private school funding in the South and the nation. Atlanta, GA: Author.
      Google Scholar
    • Sullivan, A. L., & Bal, A. (2013). Disproportionality in special education: Effects of individual and school variables on disability risk.Exceptional Children, 79(4), 475–494.
      CrossrefGoogle Scholar
    • Tourangeau, K., Nord, C., Lê, T., Sorongon, A. G., & Najarian, M. (2009). Early childhood longitudinal study, kindergarten class of 1998–99 (ECLS-K), combined user's manual for the ECLS-K eighth-grade and K–8 full sample data files and electronic codebooks (NCES 2009-004). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.
      Google Scholar
    • U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs. (2016a). 38th Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.
      Google Scholar
    • U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs. (2016b). IDEA Section 618 data products: State level data files. Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/programs/osepidea/618-data/index.html
      Google Scholar
    • Voulgarides, C. K. (2018). Does compliance matter in special education?: IDEA and the hidden inequities of practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
      Google Scholar
    • Voulgarides, C. K., Zwerger, N., & Noguera, P. (2013). Identifying the root causes of disproportionality. New York, NY: Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of SchoolsRetrieved from https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/scmsAdmin/media/users/ll81/Identifying_the_Root_Causes_of_Disproportionality.pdf
      Google Scholar
    • Waitoller, F. R., Artiles, A. J., & Cheney, D. A. (2010). The miner's canary: A review of overrepresentation research and explanations.Journal of Special Education, 44(1), 29–49.
      CrossrefGoogle Scholar
    • Yun, J. T., & Reardon, S. F. (2005). Private school racial enrollments and segregation.In J. Scott (Ed.), School choice and diversity: What the evidence says (pp. 42–58). New York, NY: Teachers College Press, Columbia University.
      Google Scholar

    Additional Resources