Students identified with disabilities have lower academic outcomes, decreased interaction with peers who do not have disabilities, and decreased postsecondary outcomes compared with peers who do not have disabilities. Educators must constantly work to ensure that identification of disability conditions is accurate and free from racial and cultural bias. Federal and state policies mandate that identification of a disability is not due to racial or cultural differences. Identifying racial or cultural differences as disability conditions has negative repercussions for both the student and the local education agency. In December of 2016, Title 34, Section 300.646, of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations ordered states and local education agencies (LEAs) to collect and examine data in disability identification by race and ethnicity. This initiative was aimed at preventing racial discrimination in special education referrals. The regulations acknowledged that overidentification can lead to special education services for students when these services are not actually needed. This course explores a trend which may have been unexpected but accounts for the largest category of overidentification of a specific disability condition by race/ethnicity in Texas. This category is the overidentification in Asian American students with autism, a disability condition which the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act defines as significantly affecting verbal communication, nonverbal communication, and social interaction. Overidentification of autism in Asian American students is a concerning trend which can be reversed with the use of evidence-based practices in the evaluation of culturally and linguistically diverse students.
As a result of this session, participants will
1. Identify what the research says about overidentification of disability conditions in specific racial and ethnic categories.
2. Identify effective methods for reducing disproportionality.
3. Design informal evaluation measures including parent interviews and dynamic assessments.
Financial Disclosures: Beth Darbe, Ed.D., CCC-SLP is an employee of Region 4 Education Service Center
Non-Financial Disclosures: None
This is an intermediate course, and participants will earn 0.3 ASHA CEUs.