The 1975 enactment and implementation of Public Law 94-142, now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), spurred landmark changes for children with disabilities, guaranteeing them a free and appropriate public education. Consequently, millions of children and youth with disabilities have been afforded educational opportunities previously denied to them, including students with learning disabilities (LD).

While the rights insured by IDEA have dramatically improved the education provided to the nation's children with disabilities, many challenges remain. High drop out rates, low graduation rates and low college attendance are just a few of the unacceptable outcomes being experienced by almost 3 million students with LD. Such outcomes indicate a need for enhanced services delivered in a more timely manner.

Key to these improvements is a reformulation of the current approach used to identify students with learning disabilities and provide specialized instruction - an approach that identifies children much too late and often fails to provide the tailored assessment, instruction and monitoring needed.

The current process used to determine the presence of a specific learning disability (SLD) in school-age students under the IDEA grew out of a regulatory requirement developed to differentiate between students who had low achievement because of low ability (i.e., individuals with low ability or IQ) and those whose low achievement was unexpected (i.e., individuals with normal or above-normal ability). In an attempt to operationalize the statutory definition of SLD, federal regulations provided criteria for determining the existence of SLD that included a finding of the existence of a severe discrepancy between achievement and intellectual ability in one or more of seven domains of academic functioning.

Based on this requirement, states have developed procedures for determining the existence of a severe discrepancy that generally include the administration of standardized ability (IQ) and academic achievement tests followed by a comparison of the standard scores of each test. If this comparison reveals a significant discrepancy, or difference, between ability and achievement in at least one area (such as reading), then the student satisfies the requirement for SLD identification and special education eligibility. Federal regulations also require that certain conditions that might have caused the discrepancy must be ruled out. These conditions include mental retardation, emotional disturbance, visual, hearing, or motor impairment as well as environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage. This additional requirement is designed to prevent the misidentification of students as learning disabled.

Because the discrepancy between achievement and ability must be severe, students generally must fall behind for one to three years before their test scores will produce the required degree of failure. Currently, almost three times more students are receiving special education services for learning disabilities at ages 9-11 than at ages 6-8, suggesting that the current discrepancy-based approach postpones eligibility until around grade 3.

All states have regulations that require a severe discrepancy between ability and achievement for purposes of determining the presence of specific learning disabilities and special education eligibility. Some states establish a statewide discrepancy approach and some even specify the severity of the discrepancy required, stated in terms of standard deviations. A variety of approaches are used among the 50 states, resulting in vastly different models for LD identification and special education eligibility. Consequently, the same student can be deemed LD and eligible for special education in one state while neither LD nor eligible for special education in another. In addition to differing approaches and requirements for LD determination, eligibility is not portable, so eligible students moving to a new state are subject to lengthy assessment/eligibility processes before they can resume receiving special education services (should they be found eligible in the new state).

All of these conditions " requirement of severe discrepancy, state variance in approach, and lack of portability " combine to result in years of needless failure for students desperately struggling to learn at the most important time in their education career.

What We Know

Initial IDEA regulations outlining the criteria for determining the existence of a specific learning disability were issued in 1977. Despite the lack of widespread acceptance, the requirement of a severe discrepancy between achievement and intellectual ability was included in those 1977 regulations. Twenty-five years later, both educational practice and research offer guidance on better ways to determine the presence of LD and the need for special education services.

We now know that the predictive validity of IQ tests for children age 5-9 is questionable. Particularly as a predictor of reading achievement in the early elementary grades, IQ usually accounts for only 10 to 25 percent of the variance in reading achievement. We also know that the current approach delays identification because achievement failure sufficient to produce a discrepancy from IQ cannot be reliably measured until a child reaches approximately nine years of age. In addition, bias in testing may contribute to an over-identification of ethnically and culturally different students in special education.

Research also shows that the majority (95 percent) of students who enter kindergarten and elementary school at-risk for reading failure (the primary deficit of most students identified as learning disabled) can learn to read at average or above levels, but only if they are identified early and provided with research-based instruction. Left on their own to struggle, a large majority (74 percent) of children who do not receive help until after the age of nine will have some difficulty reading throughout life. When these older students finally get help, it takes much more time, effort and resources to achieve the same degree of improvement that they could have made during kindergarten and first grade. In the meantime, their inability to read at or near grade level for an extended period of time compromises their ability to access and master essential subject matter knowledge. Most devastating is that delays in providing appropriate reading intervention in the early grades means that many children will never become competent readers.

Clearly, alternative approaches that allow earlier identification and provide research-based interventions must be adopted in the face of overwhelming evidence that the discrepancy-based approach fails to provide students the best opportunity to progress.

Policy Recommendations

The National Center for Learning Disabilities believes that new approaches to determining whether a child has a specific learning disability and requires special education are critical to achieving better outcomes for students with LD. Such new approaches must reflect our best knowledge and understanding of LD so that we can stop wasting valuable time and keep kids learning.