Special ed process—Step 1: Eligibility

Is the student eligible for special education services?

As indicated in the overview for this series, the very first question that should be addressed in the special education process is whether an individual student is eligible for special education services. The eligibility question follows a referral for special education evaluation. The initial referral may be made by a teacher or requested by a student’s parent.

Here is the Bateman-Linden triangle again, but this time I’ve emphasized the eligibility step.

The right way to implement the special education process. Illustration based on Figure 1.1 from Bateman and Linden (2007).

For such a seemingly simple question, the eligibility-evaluation one has been a major sticking block in practice, at least in the US. Some people seem to worry that it is too easy for students to qualify for special education services, but some argue that it’s too hard to qualify. Some say too many student qualify, but some say too few do. Some say there’s a bias for (or against) students from non-majority ethnic or language groups.

It seems to me that the eligibility step in the special education process is a lot like many issues: People simply interpret things differently. (Many of the references listed in the section of this post under the heading “sources” discuss concerns about different views in identification; peruse and read them, as doing so will expose one to an array of perspectives.)

The question

Given a referral for evaluation, the question about whether an individual is eligible for special education turns on two subquestions:

1. Does the student have a disability?

2. Does she need specialized instruction or services to meet her needs?

If a student has a disability and requires specialized instruction or services, then—Ding! Ding!—he is eligible, and the bottom leg of the Bateman-Linden triangle has been traversed. On to the next question (which would be the IEP).

But, wait a second…

In some cases the consideration about whether a student has a disability is readily answered. “Yes, she has cerebral palsy” or “Yes, he’s blind.” In cases when the answer to the question about disability is obvious, the second question—“does the student need specialized instruction or services?”—may be no! Perhaps the student only needs a specialized desk that permits her to hold her arms in a position that allows her to write, which she can do legibly when such a desk is available.

But, sometimes the question about the presence of a disability is not readily answered. Disagreements about eligibility may arise because of variations in definitions of various disabilities. Maybe she does or maybe she doesn’t have a disability. By Julia’s understanding of X-type Disability, the child does have a disability, but according to Severn’s understanding of X-type Disability, the child does not have a disability. In whom will you place your trust?

It’s important to realize that special education eligibility decisions should be based on education law. IDEA provided the guidance about categories. Medical diagnoses, psychiatric nosology, optometric evaluations, chiropractors’ opinions, checklists found on the Internet, and other sources may be (more of less) informative, but they are not authoritative; IDEA trumps them.¹

Special education has witnessed efforts to reduce subjectivity in eligibility decisions. As early as the months immediately following the passage of P.L. 94-142 (the original US legislations establishing the goal of a free and appropriate public education by following the processes outlined here), there were efforts to provide formuli into which teams could simply insert data (e.g., test scores, age, etc.) and, voilà, the decision would appear. Although people raised questions about such formuli at that time (see, e.g., Lloyd et al., 1977), alternative formuli and related methods proliferated (Hanna et al., 1979; McLeod, 1979 ). Among others, Cone and Wilson (1981) provided a critique of the methods.

Other times disagreement may arise because someone on the team is concerned about the consequences of being identified as having a disability. “She’ll be stigmatized the rest of her life!” “He’ll never get rid of that label.” “Finding kids eligible just means that they’re going to get a second-class education.” Although most of us understand that these views can be rebutted, we have to admit that people hold such views.

In the face of intransigent resistant to finding a student eligible, a meaningful question is, “What will happen to him if he isn’t eligible?” Some folks may suggest that making adaptations in the general education setting is preferable. “What about RTI?” RTI or MTSS should have been employed before the eligibility meeting was convened. The results from those general education processes should be used a part of the evidence in making the eligibility decision, as indicated in the 2004 revision of IDEA; the RTI or MTSS processes should not be an outcome or result of the eligibility decision.

A closely related concern is what has been provided to the student in general education prior to the referral for eligibility evaluation. Did the general education environment provide effective learning opportunities? Were alternative instructional strategies employed to meet the child’s needs? These are especially important questions with regard to learning disabilities, where where some educators argue there should be a concerted effort to avoid identification by providing preventative services in the regular or general education environments. Contemporary efforts appear under different terms such as “response to intervention” (see, e.g., Burns et al., 2007) or “multi-tiered systems of support” (see, e.g., Brown-Chidsey, & Brickyard, 2015), but the history for the idea stretches back to Chalfant et al. (1979) for employing “teacher assistance teams” as a pre-referral strategy. Despite debate about the appropriateness of RTI and MTSS methods (e.g., Fuchs et al., 2002; Kavale, 2005; Mastropieri & Scruggs, 2005; see also chapters in Bradley et al., 2002; Scruggs & Mastrpieri, 2003). Note, again, that RTI and MTSS are general education services that occur before eligibility determination.

Some concerns

Although definitions for some categories of disability have been disparaged as more readily affected by subjective opinion (see, Reschly’s 1988 analysis of disabilities that do not have an obvious biological basis), there is substantial variation in the identification of almost all categories of disability (see, e.g., Hallahan et al., 1986; Hallahan et al., 2007). Furthermore, disputes arise not just in LD and EBD, but also autism (e.g., Beeger et al., 2009), intellectual disability (Maulik et al., 2011), and other categories.

One of the most enduring concerns about identification has been the use of discrepancy between IQ and achievement. Originally predicated on arguments advanced by Bateman (1969)², among others, as a way to characterize “unexpected underachievement,” the concept became formalized and resulted in debates about what methods and procedures were appropriate to use in determining discrepancy and how much of a statistical difference was needed for a discrepancy to be important or significant. Fletcher et al. (1998) provided a cogent summary of concerns about discrepancy methods and evidence for why they have largely been abandoned.

What’s the wrong way?

Bateman and Linden put “the right way” on their triangle. If the triangle indicates the right way, what’s the wrong way? There are several wrong ways. Bateman and Linden illustrated them with triangles showing different paths through the processes of eligibility-IEP-placement. I’ll illustrate some of them with fictitious quotes in the following bullets:

• “Oh, we don’t have any slots in our EBD program, so we can’t say he’s eligible.”

• “Well, you know she’d be a good fit for an LD inclusion program, so let’s identify her as LD.”

• “Oh, this child is too young to have a disability; he’s isn’t really that far behind yet.”

Once pitfalls such as these have been avoided and a student has been appropriately determined to be eligible for special education (“yes” to both questions posed at the beginning of this post), then it’s time to move onto the next leg of the triangle—ask, “What does the student need and how are we educators going to meet those needs?—and that leg is the IEP process, which is the subject of the next post in this series.

Sources

Algozzine, B. (2017). Toward an acceptable definition of emotional disturbance: Waiting for the change. Behavioral Disorders, 42(3), 136-144. https://doi.org/10.1177/0198742917702117

Algozzine, B., Schmid, R., & Conners, B. (1978). Toward an acceptable definition of emotional disturbance. Behavioral Disorders, 4(1), 48-52. https://doi.org/10.1177/019874297800400101

Artiles, A. J., & Trent, S. C. (1994). Overrepresentation of minority students in special education: A continuing debate. The Journal of Special Education, 27(4), 410-437. https://doi.org/10.1177/002246699402700404

Barrio, B. L., Ferguson, S. L., Honey, K. A., Boedeker, P., & Klutz-Drye, B. (2022). Voices beyond the numbers: a systematic review of qualitative studies of disproportionality in special education. Preventing School Failure: Alternative Education for Children and Youth, 67(1), 39-47. https://doi.org/10.1080/1045988X.2022.2101422

Bateman, B. D. (1969). An educator’s view of a diagnostic approach to learning disorders. In J. Hellmuth (Ed.) Learning disorders (Vol. I, pp. 219-239). Special Child.

Bateman, B. D., & Chard, D. J. (1995). Identifying students who have learning disabilities. The Oregon Conference Monograph Volume, 7. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED385019.pdf

Bateman, B. D., & Linden, M-A. (2007). Better IEPs: How to develop legally correct and educationally useful programs. Attainment.

Begeer, S., Bouk, S. E., Boussaid, W., Terwogt, M. M., & Koot, H. M. (2009). Underdiagnosis and referral bias of autism in ethnic minorities. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 39(3), 142-148. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-008-0611-5

Bradley, R., Danielson, L., & Hallahan, D.P. (2002). Identification of learning disabilities: Research to practice. Erlbaum.

Brown-Chidsey, R., & Bickford, R. (2015). Practical handbook of multi-tiered systems of support: Building academic and behavioral success in schools. Guilford.

Burns, M. K., Deno, S. L., & Jimerson, S. R. (2007). Toward a unified response-to-intervention model. In S. R. Jimerson, M. K. Burns, & A. M. VanDerHayden (Eds), Handbook of response to intervention: The science and practice of assessment and intervention (pp. 428-440). Springer.

Chalfant, J. C., Pysh, M. V., & Moultrie, R. (1979). Teacher assistance teams: A model for within-building problem solving. Learning Disability Quarterly, 2(3), 85–96. https://doi.org/10.2307/1511031

Cone, T. E., & Wilson, L. R. (1981). Quantifying a severe discrepancy: A critical analysis. Learning Disability Quarterly, 4(4), 359-371. https://doi.org/10.2307/1510737

DeMatthews, D. E., Edwards Jr, D. B., & Nelson, T. E. (2014). Identification problems: US special education eligibility for English language learners. International Journal of Educational Research, 68(1), 27-34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2014.08.002

Fletcher, J. M., Francis, D. J., Shaywitz, S. E., Lyon, G. R., Foorman, B. R., Stuebing, K. K., & Shaywitz, B. A. (1998). Intelligent testing and the discrepancy model for children with learning disabilities. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 13(4), 186–203. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1998-03124-001

Fuchs, D., Mock, D., Morgan, P.L., & Young, C.L. (2002). Responsiveness to intervention: Definition, evidence, and implications for the learning disabilities construct. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 18, 157-171. https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-5826.00072

Hallahan, D. P., Keller, C. E., & Ball, D. W. (1986). A comparison of prevalence rate variability from state to state for each of the categories of special education. Remedial and Special Education, 7(2), 8-14. https://doi.org/10.1177/074193258600700204

Hallahan, D. P., Keller, C. E., Martinez, E. A., Byrd, E. S., Gelman, J. A., & Fan, X. (2007). How variable are interstate prevalence rates of learning disabilities and other special education categories? A longitudinal comparison. Exceptional Children, 73(2), 136-146. https://doi.org/10.1177/001440290707300201

Hanna G.S., Dyck N.J., Holen M.C. (1979). Objective analysis of achievement-aptitude discrepancies in LD classification. Learning Disability Quarterly, 2(4), 32–38.

Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, 2004. Pub. L. No. 108-446, 20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq.

Kavale K. A. (2005). Identifying specific learning disability: Is responsiveness to intervention the answer?. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 38(6), 553–562. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222194050380061201

Karvonen, M., Clark, A. K., Carlson, C., Wells Moreaux, S., & Burnes, J. (2021). Approaches to identification and instruction for students with significant cognitive disabilities who are English learners. Research and Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities, 46(4), 223-239. https://doi.org/10.1177/15407969211040256

Lloyd, J., Sabatino, D., Miller, T., & Miller, S. (1977). Proposed federal guidelines: Some open questions. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 10(2), 69-71. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/002221947701000203

Mastropieri, M. A., & Scruggs, T. E. (2005). Feasibility and consequences of response to intervention: Examination of the issues and scientific evidence as a model for the identification of individuals with learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 38(6), 525-531. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222194050380060801

Maulik, P. K., Mascarenhas, M. N., Mathers, C. D., Dua, T., & Saxena, S. (2011). Prevalence of intellectual disability: A meta-analysis of population-based studies. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 32(2), 419-436. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ridd.2010.12.018

McLeod J. (1979). Educational underachievement: Toward a defensible psychometric definition. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 12(5), 332–330.

Ortiz, A. A., Robertson, P. M., Wilkinson, C. Y., Liu, Y. J., McGhee, B. D., & Kushner, M. I. (2011). The role of bilingual education teachers in preventing inappropriate referrals of ELLs to special education: Implications for response to intervention. Bilingual Research Journal, 34(3), 316-333. https://doi.org/10.1080/15235882.2011.628608

Reschly, D. (1988). Minority mild mental retardation overepresentation: Legal isues, research findings, and reform trends. In M. C. Wang, M. C. Reynolds, and H. J. Walberg (Eds.), Handbook of special education: Research and practice (Vol. 2, pp. 23-41). Pergamon.

Reschly, D. (1996). Identification and asesment of students with disabilities. The Future of Children, 6(1), 40-53.

Scruggs, T. E., & Mastropieri, M. A. (Eds.). (2003). Identification and assessment: Advances in learning and behavioral disabilities (Vol. 16). Elsevier.

Sullivan, A. L., Sadeh, S., & Houri, A. K. (2019). Are school psychologists’ special education eligibility decisions reliable and unbiased?: A multi-study experimental investigation. Journal of School Psychology, 77(2), 90-109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2019.10.006

Footnotes

1. For the official educational definitions of the various categories or “types” of disabilities, see https://sites.ed.gov/idea/regs/b/a/300.8.

2. Within about 20-30 years, Bateman (see Bateman & Chard, 1995) had abandoned advocacy for the discrepancy model for identification of LD.