IDENTIFICATION AND PLACEMENT OF STUDENTS WITH SERIOUS EMOTIONAL DISTURBANCE .1. CORRELATES OF STATE CHILD-COUNT DATA

Research on students with serious emotional disturbances (SED) suggest s that these children are significantly underidentified. National spec ial education data bear out this conclusion to a large extent. However , the rate at which U.S. public schools identify children as SED varie s considerably across states. The relationships between those rates of identification and a set of demographic and economic variables that h ave been found to be important in earlier work were examined in this r esearch. Significant correlations were found between SED identificatio n and several state economic variables. A regression analysis indicate d that variation in per pupil revenue explains about one fourth of the variance in identification rates. Significant differences were found among groups of states based on region, elementary and secondary expen diture, per pupil revenue, and per capita income. Regional differences were maintained, even when the effects oi per pupil revenue were remo ved. The implications of these findings for public policy and special education planning and service delivery are discussed.