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Philip Dale’s
18-year study findings show that some students can beat
the odds and improve beyond expectations, and that social
factors are important early childhood skills to stress.
Photo courtesy of MU Health Care
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Early
Special Education Diagnoses Don’t Always Hold
An MU researcher says temperament
and ethnicity are good indicators of future improvement.
By Cheri Ghan
When early diagnostic evaluations place preschool
children in special education services, it is hoped the intervention
will mean improvement in their academic achievement. Following
an 18-year study, a University of Missouri-Columbia researcher
says while some of the children “beat the odds” and
improve, most do not, and an unfortunate few slip further behind.
In a new study published in the current issue
of The Journal of Special Education, Philip Dale, chair
of the Department of Communication
Science and Disorders, says children with a positive, outgoing
temperament are most likely to see academic improvement. Ethnicity
also was a strong indicator of future success.
Dale’s study examined 171 13-year-olds
who had been in special education programs as preschoolers. He
found a higher proportion of Euro-Americans with a relatively
positive temperament and the absence of referral for social reasons
were more likely to be placed in the “improver” category
than other students. Dale says while there was a trend for male
students to have more positive outcomes, the numbers were not
significant.
Dale said while preschool cognitive measures
continued to significantly predict later performance, there were
cases of “errors of prediction.” In those cases, the
children’s later academic performances were substantially
better or worse than the early tests predicted.
“About three-fourths of them
were in special education at age 13 and their average score on
a test of academic abilities, such as reading and math, was at
the 16th percentile,” Dale said. “So, at a group level,
the initial classification was discouragingly accurate. But, there
was tremendous variation among the group at age 13, with some
students functioning at grade level or above and others having
fallen even further behind.”
Dale says the findings show that some students
can beat the odds and improve beyond expectations, and that social
factors are important early childhood skills to stress.
“The first is another reminder, and we can’t have
too many, that the school environment can make a difference,”
Dale said. “The very fact that the odds were against them
and they ‘beat the odds’ shows that it can be done.
A second implication is the great importance of personality and
social factors. I take this as evidence that emphasis on social
skills in early childhood education is well justified, not a distraction
from purely academic activities.”
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Last Update:
March 12, 2007
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