Abstract
Purpose:
The purpose of this study is to provide updated national estimates on the annual number, educational environments, and secondary school outcomes of students who are D/deaf and hard of hearing (D/HH) receiving special education (SpEd) and related services in the United States.
Method:
We performed a retrospective cross-sectional descriptive analysis of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Part B, Section 618 data from 2012 to 2018. Participants included students 6–21 years old in SpEd with “hearing impairment” reported as their primary disability. The general population of students in secondary school served as a comparator, via Current Population Survey data. We described the annual number of students (a) overall, (b) by educational environment, and (c) by reason for exiting SpEd, including the proportion graduating from and dropping out of secondary school. We described variation over time.
Results:
The median annual number of students was 67,655, with minimal variation by year. The proportion in general education (GenEd) for ≥ 80% of the day increased by 4.2% over 6 years from 57.8% to 62.0%, whereas the proportions in GenEd for < 40% and 40%–79% of the day decreased by 1.6% and 1.3%, respectively. Proportions in the remainder of the environments changed < 1.0% each. Of exiters, 86.8% of students graduated, whereas 3.9% dropped out, compared to a dropout rate of 5.0% in the general population.
Conclusion:
From 2012 to 2018, students who are D/HH receiving SpEd in the United States have spent increasingly more time in GenEd, most graduated from high school, and few dropped out, with dropout patterns appearing similar to the general population.
Approximately 14.9% of children in the United States ages 6–19 years are d/Deaf and hard of hearing (D/HH), defined as hearing thresholds ≥ 16 dB in at least one ear (Hearing Loss (Ages 5+); American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, n.d.; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2020). Children who are D/HH may have difficulty developing expressive and receptive oral/aural language (e.g., Korver et al., 2017). These children are at risk of lagging behind peers in educational outcomes. This risk is higher among children with more significant hearing loss, cognitive comorbidities (Cupples et al., 2018), and poorer access to audiological and/or social interventions (e.g., hearing device, sign language instruction, introduction to Deaf culture; Blackorby & Knokey, 2006; Ching et al., 2013; National Association of State Directors of Special Education, 2019; Tomblin et al., 2015). Furthermore, approximately 20%–40% of children with congenital hearing loss have at least one additional disability (Cupples et al., 2018). To optimize educational outcomes, students with hearing loss frequently require additional educational support (e.g., National Association of State Directors of Special Education, 2019 ). Examples of such support include teachers of the Deaf, educational audiology, speech and language pathology, classrooms with smaller student-to-teacher ratios, educational interpreters/transliterators, accommodations for preferential classroom seating, and use of technology such as assistive listening devices.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) states that all children with disabilities in the United States are entitled to Free Appropriate Public Education via early intervention and special education (SpEd) services (e.g., Lipkin et al., 2015). IDEA is a federal law overseen by the U.S. Department of Education. IDEA's provisions are separated into four distinct parts. Part A describes general provisions of the law. Part B describes provisions for children ages 3–21 years. Part C describes services for early intervention programs for infants and toddlers under the age of 3 years. Part D describes provisions for developing personnel and skills among families to care for children with special needs. The federal government awards grants to jurisdictions to assist with these provisions. Grants are awarded annually to 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Department of the Interior, Outlying Areas, and the Freely Associated States (e.g., U.S. Department of Education, 2016 ). Jurisdictions receiving grant support are then required to report comprehensive rosters and outcomes to the U.S. Department of Education, which is described annually in a report to Congress. These are the data used for this study, described in detail later. Many students who are D/HH receive SpEd through IDEA. IDEA Part B defines “deafness” as “a hearing impairment that is so severe that the child is impaired in processing linguistic information through hearing, with or without amplification, that adversely affects a child's educational performance” (IDEA, 2015), whereas they define “hearing impairment” as “an impairment in hearing, whether permanent or fluctuating, that adversely affects a child's educational performance, but that is not included under the definition of deafness in this section” (IDEA). States may further define eligibility criteria for services, and the granularity of these definitions varies widely.
Sources of data for describing students who are D/HH in SpEd in the United States have included the Gallaudet Research Institute (GRI) and the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES). GRI published an Annual Survey of D/HH Children & Youth from 1968 through 2014 (Holden-Pitt & Albertorio Diaz, 1998; Reilly, 2020). The Annual Survey provided estimates of the number of D/HH students in SpEd with details on demographics and Deaf education (Mitchell, 2004). An analysis of the first 30 years of data from the Annual Survey found that more students were transitioning from SpEd to GenEd, or “mainstreaming,” over time (Holden-Pitt & Albertorio Diaz, 1998). These trends were attributed to efforts to integrate children in SpEd with children in GenEd as much as possible (Crossley, 2000; Howard, 2004). Since 1985, a series of longitudinal studies have been performed by the NCES, which have provided reliable estimates of the number of students who were D/HH in SpEd, as well as individual-level longitudinal data to study cohort outcomes (Blackorby et al., 2010; Holden-Pitt, 2005).
The most recent national estimate was from GRI for the 2013–2014 school year. However, they reported that their sample size was far smaller than in previous years and therefore unreliable for producing national estimates (Reilly, 2020). GRI and NCES both produce national estimates using weighting schemas developed from programmatic data from IDEA. Pursuant to Section 618 of IDEA, the U.S. Department of Education keeps an annual record of all students receiving benefits for SpEd. Thus, IDEA 618 data constitute the total population of students in SpEd in the United States each year. These data are summarized and published in reports to Congress annually; however, these reports do not focus on individual disability categories. These data are publicly available and contain descriptions of educational environments and educational outcomes previously longitudinally tracked by GRI and NCES.
Given ongoing advances in early hearing loss detection, diagnosis, and intervention programs as well as advances in technology (e.g., hearing devices, visual communication devices), we anticipate that the previous trends have continued and that the total number of students who are D/HH in SpEd may be slowly decreasing over time. This study aims to provide an update.
Method
This was a cross-sectional retrospective descriptive analysis of public federal data.
Data Sources and Sample
Section 618 of IDEA requires that each state submit data about the children with disabilities ages 3–21 years who receive SpEd under Part B. Children who receive SpEd under Part B are categorized into one of 13 primary disability categories. Criteria for each category are determined by each state and do not necessarily reflect clinical diagnostic criteria, as discussed previously. Children are evaluated by district-level professionals in collaboration with family and teachers to discern whether they are eligible for SpEd and, if so, then under which category they will receive services (Lipkin et al., 2015). IDEA data have been collected annually since 1997. Data collection categories are (a) Assessment, (b) Child Count and Educational Environment, (c) Discipline, (d) Dispute Resolution, (e) Exiting, (f) Maintenance of Effort Reduction and Coordinated Early Intervention Services, and (g) Personnel. The data in each category, except for the Child Count and Educational Environment, are limited by whether data are available for every year since 1997, which age groups are available, and whether or not the data are released with variables for disability category, state, race, ethnicity, and other categories that may render small samples. The U.S. Department of Education aggregates these data at the county, state, and national level and then releases it for public use ( Office of Special Education Programs, 2020b).
The current study used two data sources from IDEA 618 Part B: (a) Child Count and Educational Environment and (b) Exiting for 50 states for the years 2012 through 2018. These years were chosen because the start year was after 2010 and this was the longest contiguous interval for which both data files were available. We extracted data on all students ages 6–21 years with a district-reported primary disability of “hearing impairment.” We will refer to these students as students who are D/HH in SpEd.
Public data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) were used to procure a comparison group of all students in secondary school aged 15–24 years from 2012 to 2018. The publicly available data are summarized and unable to be filtered only for students aged 16–21 years. Of note, this group included all students with and without disabilities. We will refer to these students as the general population of students. This group was used for a qualitative comparison of secondary school outcomes.
Variables
The following variable definitions are summaries of the definitions provided in the IDEA 618 data documentation for the students who are D/HH in SpEd.
Educational Environments
Student educational environments were reported by teachers and school programs using eight categories: (a) Inside General Class 80% or More of the Day, (b) Inside General Class 40% Through 79% of the Day, or (c) Inside General Class Less Than 40% of the Day), (d) Separate School, (e) Residential Facility, (f) Parentally Placed in Private Schools, (g) Homebound/Hospital, and (h) Correctional Facilities (Office of Special Education Programs, 2020a).
Inside general class 80% or more of the day. This category included children who received SpEd outside of the GenEd classroom for < 21% of the day. This is the most mainstream environment. This included children placed in GenEd with services provided during GenEd classes, children placed in GenEd with SpEd and services outside of the GenEd classroom, and children placed in GenEd with SpEd provided in a resource room. A resource room is a smaller classroom with a SpEd teacher who focuses content directly on helping each student work toward meeting their Individualized Education Program (IEP) goals.
Inside general class 40% through 79% of the day. This category included children placed in resource rooms with SpEd and children placed in resource rooms with part-time instruction in GenEd.
Inside general class less than 40% of the day. This category included children who received SpEd for > 60% of the school day including children placed in self-contained SpEd classrooms with part-time instruction in GenEd and children in self-contained SpEd classrooms full time but on a general school campus.
Separate school. This category included children who received education programs in public or private separate day school facilities.
Residential facility. This category included children who lived at the public or private school for disabilities that they attended for at least 50% of the day. These schools are specially equipped to serve students using visual language as their only or primary method of communication, as they typically employ teachers of the Deaf full time, whereas general school campuses often will share a limited number of itinerant teachers of the Deaf for each school district (National Association of State Directors of Special Education, 2019).
Parentally placed in private schools. This category included children enrolled in private school or homeschool whose basic education was paid for via private avenues but whose SpEd was covered via public avenues and provided at a local education agency under a service plan. This category did not include children placed in private school by the school district.
Homebound/hospital. This category included children receiving SpEd and related services in hospital programs or at home.
Correctional facilities. This category included children receiving SpEd in correctional facilities or short-term detention facilities including both community-based programs and residential facilities.
Exit Strategies
Students who are D/HH in SpEd exited SpEd in one of six ways. These included (a) graduated with a high school diploma, (b) received a certificate, (c) dropped out, (d) transferred to general education, (e) reached maximum age, and (f) died. Each state defines the standards required for each type of secondary school degree (Office of Special Education Programs, 2020a).
Graduated with a high school diploma. This category included students who earned degrees that met all state academic standards, which did not differ based on whether or not the student had a disability (Office of Special Education Programs, 2020b).
Received a certificate. This category included students who had obtained a certificate of completion, modified diploma, or general educational development (GED) credential.
Transferred to general education. This category included students who no longer had an IEP because they transferred to GenEd. These students are considered “declassified” from SpEd; however, they may still receive services and accommodations via other avenues (Office of Special Education Programs, 2020a, 2020b).
Reached maximum age. This category included students who became ineligible for services under IDEA due to their age. For most states, this is when students turn 22 years old.
Dropped out. This category included students who were enrolled at the start of the reporting period but were not enrolled at the end of the period and did not exit SpEd by any other observed endpoint. This included students who dropped out, ran away, were expelled, had an unknown status, moved and it was not known if they were continuing in another education program, and received a GED if they were in a state that did not allow dual enrollment.
Moved, known to be continuing. Students in this category were not included in the description of reason for exiting, given that they did not exit SpEd.
Measures
The annual dropout rate was the number of students categorized as dropped out divided by the total number of students exiting secondary education over each 12-month interval (National Center for Education Statistics, n.d.).
Statistical Analysis
This was a descriptive study. Dropout rates for IDEA and CPS were compared qualitatively. No statistical tests were performed.
Results
The median annual number of students who were D/HH and in SpEd between 2012 and 2018 was 67,655, with little to no variation by year (see Table 1). The proportion of these students who spent any time in GenEd at all was 86.8%, with 59.6% being in GenEd for ≥ 80% of the day (see Table 2). Table 3 demonstrates the changes over time in the proportions of students in each of the various educational environments. The proportion in GenEd for ≥ 80% of the day steadily increased each year from 57.8% to 62.0% (Δ 4.2%). The proportion in GenEd for < 40% of the day steadily decreased from 12.6% to 11.0% (Δ 1.6%). The proportion in GenEd for 40%–79% of the day steadily decreased from 16.4% to 15.1% (Δ 1.3%). The proportions in the remainder of the educational environments changed < 1.0% from 2012 to 2018.
Table 1.
Number of students ages 6–21 years served by Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Part B, with any disability compared to with hearing impairment as their primary disability, 2012–2018.
| Year | All disabilities | Hearing impairment | Proportion |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012–2013 | 5,823,844 | 68,922 | 1.18% |
| 2013–2014 | 5,847,624 | 68,158 | 1.17% |
| 2014–2015 | 5,944,241 | 67,884 | 1.14% |
| 2015–2016 | 6,050,725 | 67,426 | 1.11% |
| 2016–2017 | 6,048,882 | 65,465 | 1.08% |
| 2017–2018 | 6,130,637 | 64,812 | 1.06% |
| Mdn | 5,996,562 | 67,655 | 1.12% |
Table 2.
Annual number of students in special education with “hearing impairment” as their district-coded primary disability, ages 6–21 years, 2012–2018, by educational environment.
| Variable | Mdn | Min | Max |
|---|---|---|---|
| N | 67,655 (100%) | 64,812 (100%) | 68,922 (100%) |
| Educational environment | |||
| Inside general class 80% or more of the day | 40,337 (59.6%) | 39,844 (57.8%) | 41,188 (62.0%) |
| Inside general class 40% through 79% of the day | 10,576 (15.6%) | 9,802 (15.1%) | 11,279 (16.4%) |
| Inside general class < 40% of the day | 7,821 (11.6%) | 7,159 (11.0%) | 8,652 (12.6%) |
| Separate school | 5,204 (7.7%) | 4,717 (7.0%) | 5,672 (8.2%) |
| Residential facility | 1,918 (2.8%) | 1,319 (2.0%) | 2,321 (3.4%) |
| Parentally placed in private schools | 1,044 (1.5%) | 925 (1.4%) | 1,170 (1.7%) |
| Homebound/hospital | 119 (0.2%) | 110 (0.1%) | 129 (0.2%) |
| Correctional facilities | 31 (0.0%) | 18 (0.0%) | 47 (0.1%) |
Table 3.
Annual number of students in special education with “hearing impairment” as their district-coded primary disability, ages 6–21 years, 2012–2018, by educational environment.
| Year | Inside regular class 80% or more of the day | Inside regular class 40% through 79% of the day | Inside regular class less than 40% of the day | Separate school | Residential facility | Parentally placed in private schools | Homebound/hospital | Correctional facilities |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 57.8% | 16.4% | 12.6% | 8.2% | 3.4% | 1.4% | 0.2% | 0.1% |
| 2013 | 59.4% | 16.0% | 12.2% | 7.7% | 3.1% | 1.4% | 0.2% | 0.1% |
| 2014 | 60.2% | 15.5% | 11.6% | 7.9% | 3.0% | 1.7% | 0.2% | 0.0% |
| 2015 | 61.1% | 15.8% | 11.6% | 7.0% | 2.7% | 1.7% | 0.1% | 0.0% |
| 2016 | 61.3% | 15.5% | 11.3% | 7.8% | 2.3% | 1.6% | 0.2% | 0.0% |
| 2017 | 62.0% | 15.1% | 11.0% | 8.0% | 2.0% | 1.6% | 0.2% | 0.0% |
| Mdn | 59.6% | 15.6% | 11.6% | 7.7% | 2.8% | 1.5% | 0.2% | 0.0% |
There were 8,468 students who were D/HH and in SpEd aged 16–21 years (see Table 4). The majority of these students exited SpEd by graduating from secondary school with a high school diploma (86.8%) or certificate (5.1%), whereas 3.5% transferred to GenEd full time. Some 3.9% of the sample of students who were D/HH and in SpEd dropped out compared to 5.0% among the general population of students.
Table 4.
Annual number of students with “hearing impairment” as their district-coded primary disability who exited special education, ages 16–21 years, 2012–2018.
| Variable | Mdn | Min | Max |
|---|---|---|---|
| N | 8,468 (100%) | 4,764 (100%) | 8,972 (100%) |
| Reason for exiting special education | |||
| Graduated with a regular high school diploma | 7,354 (86.8%) | 3,748 (69.3%) | 7,512 (80.2%) |
| Received a certificate | 434 (5.1%) | 353 (4.3%) | 674 (6.9%) |
| Dropped out | 334 (3.9%) | 277 (3.5%) | 377 (4.1%) |
| Transferred to regular education | 293 (3.5%) | 256 (2.9%) | 329 (3.5%) |
| Reached maximum age | 49 (0.6%) | 44 (0.5%) | 59 (0.7%) |
| Died | 6 (0.1%) | 4 (0.0%) | 7 (0.1%) |
Discussion
This study found that the median number of students who were D/HH and in SpEd remained stable from 2012 to 2018. Students' education environments also remained stable except for those spending any amount of time in GenEd. Mainstream education appeared to be a continued trend. The proportion of students who spent the most time in GenEd (≥ 80% of the day) increased by 4.2% over the study period. It is possible that the reduction of 1.6% among children in GenEd < 40% of the day and the reduction of 1.3% among children in GenEd 40%–79% of the day contributed to this additional 4.2% of children who spent ≥ 80% of the day in GenEd; however, this is speculative in the absence of individual-level longitudinal data. Regarding educational outcomes, most students who were D/HH and in SpEd left SpEd when they graduated from secondary school with a high school diploma, and few dropped out. The dropout rate in this group may have been lower than that of the general population of students, given a dropout rate of 3.9% among students who were D/HH and in SpEd compared to 5.0% among the general population of students. This study provided an update on the number of students who were D/HH in SpEd in the United States. Reliable estimates had not been published since 2010 (e.g., Reilly, 2020). Though the Annual Survey was performed in 2011–2012 and 2013–2014, these years had markedly smaller sample sizes compared to prior years and were not fit for deriving accurate national estimates (e.g., Mitchell, 2004). Though IDEA 618 data were collected and published annually, reports were of the entire population of students with disabilities, and the authors were unable to find studies published on the “hearing impairment” subgroup upon literature review. Hearing loss screening policies and hearing technology have advanced and given children more access to sound at an earlier age. For example, the number of babies diagnosed with either normal hearing or hearing loss before 3 months of age has increased from 20,102 in 2012 to 30,170 in 2019 due to Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (CDC, 2021). It is reasonable to hypothesize that this might have reduced the annual number of students who were D/HH in SpEd; however, the analysis in the current study demonstrated that the number of students in these programs had remained stable over time at around 67,500. This is informative for national organizations such as the Department of Education and the Office of Special Education Programs, which need to make decisions regarding grant allocation for services, personnel development, and research, among other areas. This analysis argues against a reduction in services for students who are D/HH in SpEd, as there was no downward trend in demand.
This study has limitations. There were undoubtedly students who were D/HH but did not have “hearing impairment” as a primary disability, so this study did not characterize all students who were D/HH. This was a limitation of IDEA 618 data, which did not provide information about secondary, tertiary, or other disabilities. We intended to test for a difference between the graduation rates of students who were D/HH in SpEd compared to the general population of students; however, the data were not compatible, despite exploring three other sources of national data, including the NCES, the CPS, and the Common Core of Data. NCES data reported graduation rates as average freshman graduation rates or adjusted cohort graduation rates. These measures were predicated on longitudinal design, determining proportions of an entering cohort that leaves within 4 years of starting secondary school, or projecting a proportion based on population statistics for the average freshman's age. Neither of these measures are commonly used for students who are D/HH in SpEd because many participate in transition programming and graduate secondary school within 5–8 years instead of within 4 years (e.g., Schifter, 2011). For instance, the state of Minnesota found that their 2016–2017 4-year cohort graduation rates for GenEd, SpEd, and students who were D/HH were 85%, 61%, and 74%, respectively, whereas the 6-year cohort graduation rate for students who were D/HH was 80% (Cashman-Bakken, 2017). IDEA 618 reports count data of the number of students who were D/HH who exited SpEd each year by category. The annual graduation rate was calculated as the number of students who graduated from SpEd in year X divided by the number of students who exited SpEd in year X. This measure was a simple proportion rather than a cohort measure. It included students who may have taken any number of years to graduate. Considering the above example, wherein the graduation rate increased by 6% by including both 4- and 6-year cohorts, it is clear that IDEA 618 data, which included students who graduated after > 6 years, would result in artificial inflation when compared to the standard 4-year cohort rates reported for GenEd students. Unfortunately, public IDEA data were not longitudinal, individual level, or able to be linked with assessment data for cohort-based measures. Thus, it could not be transformed to generate cohort-based graduation rates that would be comparable to the cohort-based GenEd rates. Likewise, the summarized cohort data available for GenEd students similarly could not be transformed into count data. Thus, IDEA 618 graduation rates may be artificially inflated when compared to GenEd graduation rates.
We recommend that future longitudinal studies on SpEd include 4-, 5-, and 6-year adjusted cohort-adjusted graduation rates so that rates may be compared to the general population of students. Future directions for this project include determining predictors of educational environments, declassification, and secondary school outcomes among SpEd students who are D/HH in SpEd using individual-level nationally representative longitudinal data from the NCES.
Data Availability Statement
The data sets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the IDEA Section 618 State Level Data Files on the U.S. Department of Education's Open Data Platform at https://data.ed.gov/dataset/idea-section-618-data-products-state-level-data-files.
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders T32 Research Training Grant DC000018, the Sie-Hatsukami Research Endowment Grant 413620020101, and the Richard and Francine Loeb Endowed Chair in the Childhood Communication Center. The authors acknowledge Rebecca Butz-Houghton and Joshua Olmstead for sharing their insights on education, educational audiology, and advocacy for students who are D/deaf and hard of hearing in the State of Washington.
Funding Statement
This study was supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders T32 Research Training Grant DC000018, the Sie-Hatsukami Research Endowment Grant 413620020101, and the Richard and Francine Loeb Endowed Chair in the Childhood Communication Center.
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Associated Data
This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.
Data Availability Statement
The data sets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the IDEA Section 618 State Level Data Files on the U.S. Department of Education's Open Data Platform at https://data.ed.gov/dataset/idea-section-618-data-products-state-level-data-files.