"Minorities Are Disproportionately Underrepresented in Special Education: Longitudinal Evidence Across Five Disability Conditions," a new federally funded study, revealed that minority (racial, ethnic and language) elementary and middle school students are less likely than English-speaking, white children to be identified as having disabilities.

Educational Researcher, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association, published the findings that showed that children from a mainstream experience are more likely to be identified as disabled across each of the five surveyed disability conditions (learning disabilities, speech or language impairments, intellectual disabilities, other health impairments or emotional disturbances).

Because of this, non-white children are less likely to receive essential, beneficial special education services. Also, children who come from homes where English isn't spoken or isn't the primary language are less likely to be identified as having learning disabilities, or speech or language impairments.

Federal legislation and policies were developed to reduce minority overrepresentation in special education, which rose from a history of improperly evaluating young children. Today, the U.S. Department of Education is issuing further compliance monitoring guidelines to treat that issue. The study's authors analyzed multiyear longitudinal and nationally representative data from the U.S. Department of Education to draw conclusions about children with special needs.

"Our findings indicate that federal legislation and policies currently designed to reduce minority over-representation in special education may be misdirected," Paul L. Morgan of the Pennsylvania State University said in a statement. "These well-intentioned policies instead may be exacerbating the nation's education inequities by limiting minority children's access to potentially beneficial special education and related services to which they may be legally entitled."

With their research, they learned that past studies mostly looked at unadjusted comparisons between the general population and the special education population, or differences among minority and non-minority students with controls, but often failed to account for exposure factors that increase the risk of disabling conditions. This study takes risk factors into account, including "strong predictors of academic achievement or behavior for a school-based disability diagnosis."

Underrepresentation of minority children is evident when looking at the numbers. The report showed that children from households with lower levels of education or income, and without health insurance are less likely to be identified with having speech, language or other health impairments.

"This underrepresentation may result from teachers, school psychologists, and other education professionals responding differently to white, English-speaking children and their parents," said Morgan. "Education professionals should be attentive to cultural and language barriers that may keep minority children with disabilities from being appropriately identified and treated."

Hispanic children were less likely than white children to have odds of learning disability identification: speech (29 percent), language (33 percent) or other health impairments (73 percent). African American children's odds of identification for speech or language impairments, intellectual disabilities, health impairments and emotional disturbances are, respectively, 63 percent, 57 percent, 77 percent and 64 percent lower than otherwise white children.

"Untreated disabilities increase children's risk for many adversities, including persistent academic and behavioral difficulties in school," Morgan said. "As a matter of social justice, we should work to ensure that all children with disabilities, regardless of their race, ethnicity, or language use, receive the care they need."