Product Description:
Traditionally, special education programs have been required by federal regulations to demonstrate that students have a severe discrepancy between aptitude (intelligence) and achievement in order to qualify them for special education services under the specific learning disabilities (SLD) category. With the reauthorization of federal special education laws, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA 2004), qualifying students using a severe discrepancy model became an option. Under new federal regulations accompanying IDEA 2004, school districts can choose to continue using a severe discrepancy model, adopt a new model, for example, response to intervention, or use severe discrepancy in combination with other procedures in making SLD decisions.
How to measure severe discrepancy has been a subject of much debate. Further, much criticism has been leveled at state and district special education programs for adopting technically inadequate procedures for measuring aptitude/achievement discrepancies. To address this issue, the United States Department of Education established the Special Education Programs Work Group on Measurements Issues in the Assessment of Learning Disabilities (Reynolds, C.R. (1984-85). Critical measurement issues in learning disabilities. The Journal of Special Education, 18 (4) 451-476.). This group of measurement experts developed a recommended formula and deemed it most appropriate for measuring aptitude/achievement discrepancy.
Utah adopted the original Special Education Programs Work Group formula in 1989 and a modified version in 1999. Both formulas are lengthy and requires a user to know the reliability of the aptitude and achievement tests being employed as well as the correlation between the two tests. In light of this, the Estimator software program was developed to make it easy for special educators to use the formula. Users enter demographic information on the student tested, the names of the aptitude and achievement tests administered, and the tests scores. The program uses the formula to calculate aptitude/achievement discrepancy and determine if the discrepancy is severe. It then generates three reports, (1) a Summary of Discrepancy Information, summarizing demographic and test data for the student and making statements as to whether the test data indicate a severe discrepancy between aptitude and achievement, (2) an Explanation of Percent Confidence, explaining how the program arrived at the level of confidence it did that the test data indicate a severe discrepancy, and (3) an Estimator Formula Intermediate Values report, a technical report showing the values entered for all terms in the formula as well as values for intermediate steps in the calculation
