The effect of a psychiatric diagnosis on school psychologists' special education eligibility recommendations for students thought to be emotionally disturbed

In an analogue investigation, 215 practicing school psychologists from Pennsylvania reviewed one of four hypothetical referral forms designed to test the influence of a psychiatric diagnosis on their special education eligibility recommendations. Vignettes represented male children who met eligibility criteria for special education as well as male children who did not. Multiple regression was utilized to determine the degree to which each of the independent variables, diagnosis present or absent and eligible or ineligible as per eligibility criteria, was predictive of psychologists' recommendations. Participants were most likely to recommend the child as eligible due to emotional disturbance when he met eligibility criteria and carried a psychiatric diagnosis, and least likely to do so when the child neither met criteria nor carried a diagnosis. Participants were just as likely to say that the child was eligible by virtue of emotional disturbance when he carried a diagnosis but did not meet eligibility criteria as when the child met criteria but had no diagnosis. These results suggest that school psychologists may allow the presence of a psychiatric diagnosis in referral information to inappropriately influence their recommendations regarding eligibility under the category of emotional disturbance. Psychiatric diagnoses do not correspond to the eligibility criteria nor demonstrate the need for specially-designed instruction in the school that state and federal special education laws require.