Change Over Time of the Reported Educational Disability of Children with An Autism Spectrum Disorder

Background:

All children with disabilities are guaranteed the right to a Free and Appropriate Public Education. Many children with disabilities require special education services. In order to access special education services, children must be classified by the public school district with an Educational Disability (e.g. Autism, Visual Impairment, Learning Disability).Educational disability assignment can affect the types services that are provided to an individual child.

Objectives:

Given the increase in awareness campaigns about ASD, the objective of this study was to determine if there has been a change over time (from 2000-2008) in the classified educational disability for children who have an Autism Spectrum Disorder as determined by the South Carolina ADDM program.

 Methods:

South Carolina is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network. ADDM is an active, population based surveillance program which identifies children who meet DSM-IV criteria for an ASD through retrospective chart review. This study used SC-ADDM data to compare the stated educational disability for 8-year-old children with ASD born in 1992 to 8-year-old children with ASD born in 2000. Only children who had a stated educational disability in their records and eligible for special education were included in this analysis; children who were in regular education, receiving services under Section 504, and children not attending public schools were not included.

Results:  

In 2000 only 28 % of all 8 year old children found by the ADDM methodology to meet the criteria for ASD (36/130) were identified in their records by the educational disability of Autism. The remaining 94 children with ASD  were identified in nine other categories including Intellectual Disability (32%), Emotional Disorder (8%), Learning Disorder (14%), Speech and Language Disorder (12%), Orthopedic Impairment (1%), Hearing Impairment (1%), Vision Impairment (1%), Cross-Categorical (2%), Other Health Impaired (3%).

Eight years later, in 2008, 51% of all 8 year old children meeting the criteria for ASD (103/203 children) were identified in their records by the educational disability of Autism. In turn all other educational disabilities decreased, with the exception of other health impaired. The remaining 100 children were identified in only 5 other categories including Intellectual Disability (15%), Emotional Disorder (1%), Learning Disorder (5%), Speech and Language Disorder (10%), Other Health Impaired (15%).    

Conclusions:

The number of children identified by the ADDM methodology as having an ASD and also classified with an Educational Disability as Autism increased significantly over the 8 year study period. This study supports the inference that there is better awareness of the characteristics of autism spectrum disorders among community professionals who serve this population and that more children with an ASD are receiving autism specific services.