The number and percentage of children and youth receiving special education services increased nearly every year between 1976–77 and 2004–05. Since 2004–05, the number of students receiving services has declined.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), first enacted in 1975, mandates that children and youth ages 3–21 with disabilities be provided a free and appropriate public school education. Data collection activities to monitor compliance with IDEA began in 1976.

The number and percentage of children and youth ages 3–21 receiving special education services increased nearly every year since the inception of IDEA until 2004–05 (see table 8-1). However, the number and percentage declined between 2004–05 and 2006–07. In 1976–77, some 3.7 million children and youth were served under IDEA, representing 5 percent of all children and youth ages 3–21. By 2006–07, some 6.7 million children and youth received IDEA services, corresponding to about 9 percent of all children and youth ages 3–21. Among students served under IDEA in 2006–07, about 1 percent were American Indian/Alaska Native, 2 percent were Asian/Pacific Islander, 17 percent were Hispanic, 20 percent were Black, and 59 percent were White.¹

Since 1980–81 a larger percentage of children and youth ages 3–21 have received special education services for specific learning disabilities than for any other disabilities (see table 8-2). A specific learning disability is a disorder of one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, that may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations. This includes conditions such as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. The percentage of children and youth ages 3–21 receiving special education services for a specific learning disability was 3 percentage points higher in 2006–07 than in 1976–77 (5 versus 2 percent). In comparison, the prevalence of speech or language impairments remained fairly constant, with variations of less than 1 percentage point during this period.

¹Race categories exclude persons of Hispanic ethnicity. Data from reference. (back to text)