Identification of special education students with mental retardation: Correlates of state child-count data

The number of children identified as mentally retarded by the special education system in the United States has declined dramatically over the past 15 years. Hypotheses regarding this decline have generally focused on changes in state definitions and social factors related to the stigma of the mental retardation classification. In the present study, we investigated differences in state definitions of mental retardation as well as demographic and economic variables as predictors of states' MR identification rates. Definition variables failed to relate significantly to identification rates while several race and per capita expenditure variables were significant predictors. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of investigating demographic and economic variables in understanding the variation in state MR identification rates.