Are We Identifying the Right Students for Special Education? Emerging Directions in Disproportionality Research

• In Event: Roundtable Session 9

Session Type: Roundtable Session

Abstract

This session will provide multidisciplinary commentaries on emerging research in special education, speech-language pathology, and school psychology that extends and challenges the discourse on minority disproportionality in special education. Presenters will focus is on two enduring questions central to this topic: (a) How do practices contribute to or hinder the identification of the right students for special education?, and (b) Are educational decisions racially-biased? The presenters will describe how emerging research extends our understanding of longstanding problems and assumptions in this research base, and the implications of this research for the refinement of practices and policies to improve educational decisions and foster positive student outcomes.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Special Education Research

Chair

• Alaa Houri, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

Papers

• Repeated Evidence of Minority Underrepresentation in Special Education - Paul L. Morgan, The Pennsylvania State University; George Farkas, University of California - Irvine

• Comparing Autism Spectrum Disorders Prevalence Among Somali, Black Non-Somali, Caucasian, and Hispanic Children in Minneapolis - Joseph Reichle, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

• Are School Psychologists' Decisions Reliable and Unbiased? Results From Experimental Analogue Studies - Amanda L. Sullivan, University of Minnesota; Alaa Houri, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities; Shanna Sadeh, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

• Making a Right at the Intersection of Diagnosis and Culture: Examining Diagnostic Disparity in Learning Disability - Julie A Washington, Georgia State University; Katherine T Rhodes, The Ohio State University - Columbus