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The Role of IQ in Special Education Placement Decisions

Primary and Determinative or Peripheral and Inconsequential?

DONALD L. MacMILLAN is Distinguished Professor of Education in the School of Education, University of California, Riverside. Donald L. MacMillan, School of Education-82, UNiversity of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0128.

Steven R. Forness

STEVEN R. FORNESS is principal of the hospital school and professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at teh Neuropsychiatric Hospital, University of California, Los Angeles.

ABSTRACT

The role of IQ in arriving at placement decisions in special education was portrayed in the 1972 Larry P. case as "primary and determinative" by Judge Peckham. In the present paper the evidence bearing on that portrayal—both past and present—of the emphasis placed on IQ is reviewed. Although IQ is central to state education codes and their criteria for certifying a child as eligible for special education as mentally retarded or learning disabled, the evidence shows that many children exhibiting psychometric scores that would make them eligible are never referred and, if referred, are not placed in the state-sanctioned disability category for which they qualify psycho-metrically. Evidence from ongoing research on classification of children is presented that fails to support the position that IQ is weighted heavily in arriving at eligibility and placement decisions. In fact, the evidence suggests that absolute low achievement seems far more definitive than IQ scores or discrepancies between IQ and standardized achievement. We conclude that IQ has not been, and is not currently, primary and determinative; in fact, the evidence suggests that it is peripheral to placement decisions.

Remedial and Special Education, Vol. 19, No. 4, 239-253 (1998)
DOI: 10.1177/074193259801900407


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