. "7 Assessment Practices, Definitions, and Classification Criteria." Minority Students in Special and Gifted Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2002.
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Minority Students in Special and Gifted Education
TABLE 7-2 Comparison of Classification as MR, LD, and Ineligible Using FSIQ and PIQ to Estimate Aptitude by Ethnic Group
PIQ Classification
FSIQ Classification
MR
Ineligible
LD
TOTAL
Kappa
White
MR
7
1
2
10
Ineligible
3
15
6
24
LD
1
0
20
21
Total
11
16
28
55
0.63
Black
MR
10
4
0
14
Ineligible
0
16
2
18
LD
0
0
10
10
Total
10
20
12
42
0.78
Hispanic
MR
7
7
5
19
Ineligible
1
6
11
18
LD
0
1
15
16
Total
8
14
31
53
0.31
There is somewhat of a paradox in this classification exercise. While the use of performance IQ as the estimate of aptitude reduced the number of Hispanic students qualifying as MMR by 11, it also resulted in increasing the number of Hispanic students qualifying as LD by a total of 16. By optimizing the aptitude estimate while the measure of achievement remained constant, the total number of LD cases for Hispanics more than offset the reduction in the number of children who moved out of the MR classification.
The construct of intelligence has historically been fundamental to defining MR. As discussed elsewhere in this report, tests of intelligence have very limited curricular validity and, when routinely administered to establish the eligibility of students as MR or LD, add considerably to the cost of assessment. Nevertheless, in the context of MR, “subaverage general intelligence” is a defining feature of the disability and using measures other than tests of intelligence or resistance to treatment as criteria for eligibility raises some perplexing possibilities. For students who are referred for psycho-educational assessment, the charge is to identify those cases whose “failure to thrive” in the best clinical judgment of the individual education program (IEP) committee is “due to low general intelligence” as opposed to competing hypotheses, such as a specific processing problem (i.e., LD) or emo-
