Identification and placement of African-American children in special education within the San Francisco Bay Area

In speech-language pathology, there is a need for greater understanding of the process of identifying, assessing, and serving the speech-language needs of African-American children in public schools. The purpose of my research study is to gain greater specificity in understanding the process of identifying and placing African-American children in special education within the San Francisco Bay Area, and thereby gaining insight into the cause of historic and persistent disproportionate identification and placement of African- American children is special education programs. The focus of this work is on the dichotomy between the over-representation of African-American children within special educational programs for children with high-incidence disabilities, and the under-representation of African-American children in programs for children with autism. This paper will look at peer-reviewed research, publically accessible government data, and a survey looking at self-efficacy of San Francisco Bay Area speech-language pathologists. The etiological focus of the disproportionality with be: professional bias, assessment bias, socioeconomic status effect, parent-professional relationships, and cultural differences regarding disability.