- Study found that, compared with the scores of students in general education and advanced placements, students with learning disabilities demonstrated a significant achievement gap on standardized tests. 
- Despite the learning curve for the disabilities group closing the gap slightly over several years, the amount it closed was small relative to the initial achievement gap, indicating that the students with learning disabilities were not able to catch up with their general education counterparts. 
- Researchers hypothesized that observed rapid growth in the learning disabilities group could be attributed to instruction focused more specifically on word recognition, which could indicate that early intervention aimed at language comprehension and vocabulary could help sustain the rapid initial growth in students with reading-based learning difficulties. 

Achievement Gaps for Students With Disabilities: Stable, Widening, or Narrowing on a State-Wide Reading Comprehension Test?

Quality of Life refers to an individual’s overall satisfaction with life circumstances, and includes life satisfaction, self-esteem, health, and functioning. 
This study found that the quality of life for students with learning disabilities suffered particularly with regards to the following five factors in comparison to their non-disabled counterparts:
- Stress and anxiety
- Self-esteem
- Time available for other activities
- Personal relationships
- Financial pressures

Quality of Life of Higher Education Students with Learning Disability Studying Online

This study aimed to investigate the extent to which students with disabilities differed in math growth trajectories when compared to students in disability categories other than learning disabilities, gender, race-ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. The data indicated that there are significant achievement gaps in students with disabilities even when compared to other disabled students, indicating that the steps for assisting disabled students with math growth can not be considered universal. 

Math Growth Trajectories of Students With Disabilities: Disability Category, Gender, Racial, and Socioeconomic Status Differences From Ages 7 to 17

Hypotheses:
- The size of the achievement gap depends on the specific type of disability 
- The achievement gap will be larger in secondary school 
- The achievement gap will be smaller after the no child left behind act 
- The achievement gap will be smaller in high stakes assessments 

Meta Analysis of the Reading Achievement Gap Between Students with and without disabilities

references for disability achievement gap

A rising number of autistic young adults report interest in a postsecondary education, yet graduate at lower rates than neurotypical college students. After comparing academic, social, and health performance of autistic students to non-autistic disabled students and non-disabled students, researchers found that a mix of autism's characteristics and social exclusion of autistic people had a negative effect on the success of autistic undergraduates.

The Experiences of College Students on the Autism Spectrum: A Comparison to Their Neurotypical Peers

- Introduction
- Methods
- Results - impact of impairment
- Results - personal and situational circumstance
- Results - learning environment
- Discussion

Barriers to learning online experienced by students with a mental health disability: Summary

This study investigates whether there are differences in a teacher's ratings of academic intrinsic motivation (IM) in students with different types of disabilities. The researchers also investigated whether controlling factors such as parental expectations, teacher competence, and student classroom collaboration provided an explanation for why these ratings were given.

Teachers’ Perceptions of Academic Intrinsic Motivation for Students With Disabilities

Persistent and significant gaps in academic performance and/or educational attainment between non-disabled and disabled students.

San Jose State University

- Race
- Gender
- Income
- Language
- Disability
- Parent Education Level
- Nationality
- Technology
- Traditional
- Cultural differences
- The Impact of Coronavirus

Types of Achievement Gaps in Education

A disability is any impairment through which a person is hindered from full participation in society on an equal basis with those without the same impairment. 

Disability

Achievement Gap Definition (2013, Dec. 19). The Glossary of Education Reform. https://www.edglossary.org/achievement-gap/

Achievement Gap Definition

Persistent and significant gaps in academic performance and/or educational attainment between white and minority students.

Race Achievement Gap

Persistent and significant gaps in academic performance and/or educational attainment between high- and low-income students.

Income Achievement Gap

Disability Achievement Gap

Persistent and significant gaps in academic performance and/or educational attainment between students with parents with high educational attainment and students with parents with low educational attainment. 

Parent Education Level Achievement Gap

Persistent and significant gaps in academic performance and/or educational attainment between domestic and international students. 

Nationality Achievement Gap

-  1) Which variables should we use in our analysis? Why?
-  2) What types of achievement gap can we study? Why?
-  3) How should we define each type of achievement gap based on the available data and how it's defined in the literature?
-  4) Why does it matter to study the effect of the pandemic on that achievement gap? and what do you hypothesize of the effect of the pandemic on that achievement gap? Why? Please find and cite supporting literature.

Time to Innovate: Discussion and Ideas for the Achievement Gap Research Question

This paper compares students who are considered traditional against nontraditional students in terms of academic success. The summary and results note that nontraditional students tend to struggle with their GPA and completion of college, especially if they represent more aspects that are considered against the norm of the college student population.  

Traditional vs Nontraditional Students

Persistent and significant gaps in academic performance and/or educational attainment between male and female students.

Gender Gap in Education

Difference of students' performances from different culture.

Cultural differences achievement gap

Persistent and significant gaps in academic performance and/or educational attainment between native English-speaking students and ESL/ELL students.

Language Gap in Education

- Discuss  the differences in educational achievement levels between African Americans, Afro-Caribbean, and African students within the USA
- Cultural differences and parental involvement factors as the potential reasons

Cultural, Ethnic Differences, Parental Involvem Differences, and Educational Achievement of African Heritage Students: Towards Employing a Culturally Sensitive Curriculum in K-12 Classrooms,
a Literature Review

- Academics
- Achievement Gap
- Nutritional Health

The Impact of Coronavirus

- Social identity threat is a process that occurs when a person’s view of themselves is at threat due to being a member of a group that is marginalized in the context they find themselves in. The context is key as a group may be marginalized in one context but not in another.
- Demographic composition is especially important for marginalized groups as a low number of members of their group can signal social identity threat.
- Schools are a place where social identity threat is likely to emerge, especially if there is a preconceived notion of race and achievement. 
- Social identity threat has been shown to affect students’ performance as seen through stereotype threat (a subset of social identity threat).

Social Identity Threat in Education

Individuals with disabilities have higher rates of unemployment even if their disabilities do not prevent them from working 

Disability Status (as a Characteristic of the Poor)

- On average, students in all disability categories except speech impairments, emotional disturbances, and visual impairments performed significantly worse than students in the learning disabilities category.
- Students with disabilities showed a significantly slower rate of math growth
- The following disabilities groups showed significantly lower calculation scores than students with disabilities: intellectual disability, autism, traumatic brain injury, multiple disabilities
- Students with speech impairments showed significantly higher calculation scores than students with learning disabilities.

Disability Status and Math Growth Trajectory Results

Disability status refers to a person’s disabilities or lack thereof. A disability status refering to a lack of disabilities may include: able bodied, temporarily able bodied, neurotypical.

Disability Status

Disability Studies is an interdisciplinary field of study that examines the consequences and implications of disability as well as various issues that impact the disability community.

Disability Studies

Ensuring that all people have the ability to utilize a product, facility, or service, regardless of any disability they may have. Accessibility may include the modification of existing infrastructure, products, or services or designing them with disabled users in mind.

Accessibility

While not all disabilities can fit neatly into one category, these categories generally encapsulate the types of disabilities through the Impairment Dimension.

-	Cognitive / Intellectual 
-	Chronic Illnesses 
-	Developmental
-	Mental 
-	Physical / Sensory
-	Speech / Communication


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