SEELS is part of the national assessment of the 1997
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA 97) and is funded by the
Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), U.S. Department of Education. It is a 6-year study that follows a
nationally representative sample of students who were ages 6 to 12 and received
special education in 1999. SEELS
is studying the academic performance, school experiences, family life, social
adjustment, and personal growth of these students as they move from elementary
school to middle school and from middle school to high school.
There are three main data collection activities for
SEELS, each collected in three waves. Currently, SEELS is in Wave 2 of data
collection. Data collection
activities include:
Parent interviews. SEELS
starts its second wave of parent telephone interviews in April. Parents respond to questions about the
experiences of their children and their family life. Interviews are done in English and Spanish. SEELS heard from nearly 10,000 parents
in Wave 1 and hopes the Wave 2 efforts will be even more successful.
Student assessments. We
learn about students’ academic performance and their perception of school
and learning in face-to-face assessments/interviews. Professionals are hired and trained to arrange and conduct
assessments of students. If the
face-to-face assessment is not appropriate for the student, a person familiar
with the student will be asked to complete an alternative assessment about the
student’s ability to conduct daily activities in school and in the
community.
More than 750 field assessors are contacting schools
and parents to arrange assessments.
Many field assessors are returning from Wave 1 to help with the second
wave. Their hard work and time commitment
are much appreciated.
Surveys. Beginning with Wave 2, SEELS has asked principals to
select someone at their schools to be a point of contact for the study. These school site study coordinators
update SEELS on student participant enrollment, distribute surveys to teachers,
and provide transcripts. They also
complete the School Characteristics Survey on the policies and characteristics of their schools. Coordinators or schools will receive
stipends as a “thank-you” for their efforts and time commitment.
This
spring, teachers will complete surveys about students in the study. The Language Arts Teacher Survey provides information about students’
instructional goals, classroom experiences, assessment, accommodations, social
adjustment, and educational progress in the language arts classroom. The school staff person who knows each
student school program best completes the School Program Survey, a questionnaire about the student placement, program,
and progress. Teachers who
completed the surveys will receive stipends as a “thank you” for
their contribution to the study.
Below are some study findings obtained from
parents’ interviews on students’ strengths and health. More findings will be made available on
the SEELS Web site in the near future.
Please visit the www.seels.net for
updates.
Too often, the focus of research findings is on the
limitations rather than the capacities of students with disabilities. We expand our understanding of what
students can do through a analysis of parents’ reports of the strengths
of their children. During the interviews, parents were asked whether their
children were strong in: being well organized, performing arts ability (such as
music, dance, or theater), creative or artistic ability (like drawing or
writing poetry), being sensitive to other people’s feelings, mechanical
ability (like building or fixing things), computer use, athletic ability, or
having a sense of humor.
Figure 1 shows that many parents perceived their
children as having aptitude in each of these areas.
The largest proportions of children were reported to be strong in the two areas that are personality traits: having a sense of humor (91%) and being sensitive to others’ feelings (84%). However, many children also were reported to have specific abilities, the most prominent being computer use. Almost 70% of students were reported to have an aptitude for athletics, and more than 60% were mechanically inclined or had creative/artistic abilities. Performing arts and organizational skills were particular strengths of 57% and 43% of students, according to their parents.
The ability of students to participate in daily
activities at school and at home is conditioned in many ways by their general
health. Frequent or chronic
illness can cause absenteeism from school; the resulting missed exposure to the
school curriculum and other learning opportunities can impede student learning
and performance, sometimes significantly.
Poor health also can limit activities outside of school, hampering
development of social relationships and opportunities to hone personal
interests and skills.
To
assess the general health of students with disabilities, their parents were
asked to rate their health as “excellent,” “very good,”
“good,” “fair,” or “poor.” Figure 2 indicates that almost half of
students with disabilities were reported to have excellent health, and almost
one-fourth were reported to have very good health. However, about 10% had only fair or poor health. As a group, students with disabilities
were somewhat less healthy than their peers without disabilities; 82% of
children in the general population who were under 18 years of age in 2001 were
reported to have good or excellent health, compared with 72% of students with
disabilities.