Increasing the dialogue among stakeholders in New Jersey’s special education system

Snapshot: The Number of Students with Disabilities is on the Rise

Jun 13, 2018 | Snapshot

  1. There are 6.7 million students with disabilities in our nation’s classrooms, up from 6.6 million the previous year.
  2. 13.2% of all students ages 3-21 in the United States have educational disabilities.
  3. More than 1/3 of all students with disabilities have a specific learning disability.
  4. 20% of students have a speech or language impairment.
  5. 9% of students with disabilities have autism.
  6. 6% of students with disabilities have intellectual disabilities.
  7. Among school-age children with disabilities, the report found that 63 percent spent at least 80 percent of their day in general education classrooms, up from fewer than half in 2000.

All data are for the 2015-16 school year.

Source: National Center for Education Statistics, https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2018144