A Search for Variables Affecting Underidentification of Behaviorally Disordered Students.

Recently, several factors possibly contributing to underidentification and under serv/ce to students with behavioral disorders have been suggested. The present study sought to examine the variable of average per pupil expenditure, size of minority population, and learning disabilities service level across states desig nated as high behavioral disorders service states and low behavioral disorders service states. Results show that no statistically significant difference between these two groups of states was found on any of the three variables examined. While a wide range of variability (.03 to 3.09%) in service level to students with behavioral disorders was found among the 50 states and the District of Columbia, the analysis does not support any of the variables tested as explanations for the observed variability. Finally, implications of the findings of the study and possible explana tions for the observed variability are discussed. In recent years the proportion of schoolage students being served as behaviorally disor dered or emotionally disturbed (these terms are used generically and treated as synonym ous in this paper) has been increasing (Algozzine & Korinek, 1985). However, unlike two other major categories of handicapped students—learning disabled and mentally retarded — which have service levels near or above their official prevalence levels, behaviorally disordered students continue to be underidentified and underserved even by very conserva tive estimates of prevalence (Kauffman, 1984). Kauffman reports that prevalence studies would suggest that about 6% of children and youth in the United States could be classified as disturbed. He suggests one-third (2%) be considered as a conservative estimate of prevalence. The Seventh Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of Public Law 94-142 (Division of Educational Services, 1985) indicates that about .72% of schoolage children are receiving special education services for emotional disturbance. A number of explanations have been suggested to account for the observed discrepancy between service level and prevalence estimate. The explanations offered have included problems related to the label seriously emotion ally disturbed (Huntze, 1985; Wood, 1983), problems with the definition of seriously emo tionally disturbed in PL 94-142 (Bower, 1982; Center, 1985; Grosenick & Huntze, 1980), problems related to identification (Huntze, 1985; Kauffman, 1984; Wood & Smith, 1985), and social policy, which is in part a product of political and economic forces (Kauffman, 1984; Paul, 1985). A recent study (Tallmadge, Gamel, Munson, & Hanley, 1985), conducted for Congress by SRA Technologies, concluded that there was no need to change either the seriously emotionally disturbed label or its definition in PL 94-142. If the findings of this study are accepted, we must conclude that the discrepancy between service and prevalence level estimates cannot be accounted for by problems arising from the label, definition, or identificaiton procedures based upon the definition, at least to any significant degree. On the other hand, one could argue as Paul (1985) might that the study by Tallmadge et al. (1985) is invalid and was biased by social policy factors. Long (1983) attempted to identify factors associated with underidentification and under service of emotionally disturbed children. From her investigation, Long concluded that Behavioral Disorders May 1987 169 This content downloaded from 207.46.13.92 on Sun, 20 Nov 2016 04:12:51 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms factors associated with underidentification were fourfold: average per pupil expenditure, size of a school district's minority population, attitudes toward the label emotionally dis turbed, and failure to screen the schoolage population for emotional disturbance. In other words, underfunded school districts with high minority enrollments, who failed to screen students and/or who thought the label emotionally disturbed was stigmatizing, tended to underidentify and underserve emotionally disturbed students. Assuming these findings to be valid, one could argue that they largely exist due to social policy influences related to political and economic forces. This would be true particularly in the case of funding and minority enrollments. On the other hand, one could argue that they exist due to technical problems. This would be true particularly in the case of labeling and screening. Regardless of where one views the problem of underidentification to have its roots, another question that arises is, what happens to the emotionally disturbed student who is not so identified? Chalfant (1985) has suggested that one reason many school systems overidentify and overserve the learning disabled is that they underidentify certain other handicapping conditions. Chalfant further asserted that one of the handicapping condi tions that may be contributing to overidentification of students as learning disabled is emotional disturbance. In other words, if there are policy factors or technical problems mitigating against identification of students as emotionally disturbed, there might exist a tendency to identify students who are emotionally disturbed as learning disabled in order to provide them with special education services. The present study, therefore, was designed to investigate two of the factors, average per pupil expenditure and size of minority enrollment, as suggested by Long (1983), and the possible tendency to identify emotionally disturbed students as learning disabled, as suggested by Chalfant (1985). To test these suggestions, state-by-state data on a national basis were examined. The research hypothesis was that relatively low average expenditure, large minority populations, and large learning disabled populations would be associated with a relatively low service level for behavioral disorders, and the converse would be associated with a relatively high service level for behavioral disorders.