ORCID
Emma M. Ferns, https://orcid.org/0009-0008-8568-833X; Carlos O. Calderón-Tena, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2595-077X
Abstract
For decades, school psychologists have attempted to operationalize the federal definition of the most prevalent disability under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), specific learning disability. These attempts have led to three major identification method camps: the severe discrepancy approach, the patterns of strengths and weaknesses (PSW) approach, and the response-to-intervention approach—all of which are federally permissible under the IDEA. This study aimed to determine whether three operationalizations of the severe discrepancy approach (simple severe discrepancy using 1 and 1.5 standard deviations and the regression approach) identified the same students as those classified by their school as having an SLD using the dual discrepancy consistency model of PSW. Further, the study explored the classification agreements among the methods. The study utilized a sample of 513 special-education-referred students in grades 1 through 8. All students were from a Title 1 district in the Southwest. Our results indicated that the practitioner-applied PSW and severe discrepancy approaches identified significantly different students in all areas of SLD examined (basic reading, reading fluency, reading comprehension, math calculation, math problem solving, and written expression). Further, low classification agreement existed between the PSW and the severe discrepancy approaches. We found mild to moderate agreement between the regression and simple severe discrepancy approaches (using only 1 SD). Our results contribute to the growing body of evidence that suggests different operationalizations of SLD identify distinct students and are therefore not diagnostically interchangeable.
Included in
Disability and Equity in Education Commons, Educational Psychology Commons, School Psychology Commons, Special Education and Teaching Commons
