Preview

Abstract

The January 2023 issue of Exceptional Children includes diverse studies representing fine research. The articles range across multiple topics, different age groups, and various disabilities.We hope thatmore than one of themwill be particularly interesting to individual readers.We have two policy studies and four reports of original research. The first article analyzes the U.S. state of Texas’s policy that limited how many students could be identified as having a disability. Paul Morgan, Adrienne Woods, Yangyang Wang, and Cecelia Gloski examined how that policy affected identification of children as having disabilities. They found that Black students and English language learners were gradually less likely to be identified as having disabilities over the years that the policy was in effect. In another policy analysis, Qing Zhang and Jade Jenkins assessed whether the introduction of preK programs affected the enrollment of children with disabilities in Head Start programs. They found that U.S. states’ introduction of preK programs over 30 years resulted in a decrease in Head Start enrollment of children with disabilities. Anna Shapiro studied whether children’s ages when they begin school affected their access to special education services. Although she found little evidence of differences by gender, race, or socioeconomic status, she did find an overall effect indicating that younger students in a kindergarten cohort are more likely to be identified as having disabilities. Jan Blacher and Abbey Eisenhower assessed the frequency of children with autism being expelled from preschool and childcare programs as well as how subsequent teachers perceived those children. They report that about 1 in 6 preschoolers with autism had been expelled and that subsequent teachers described them as more likely to have more conflict, dependency, and externalizing behavior. At the other end of the age scale, Jennifer Freeman and Jacob Kirksey compared the extent to which parents of first-generation and native-born high school students with and without individualized education programs (IEPs) are engaged in their children’s education. They reported that first-generation students’ parents exhibit lower frequencies of school-based involvement compared with native-born students’ parents, but the parents of children with IEPs were more engaged, regardless of whether they were parents of first-generation or native-born students. And in another study related to adolescents, Pascale Dubois, Frédéric Guay, and MarieCatherine St-Pierre tested the contributions of motivation and parental support for autonomy to youths’ transition. They reported that autonomy support, especially from fathers and friends, promoted motivation and that positive motivation was associated with better outcomes. Each time we write these previews, we are regularly impressed with the quality of research questions covered in the articles and the quality of the research that authors submit to Exceptional Children. What is more, we are indebted to the uncompensated efforts of outstanding scholars to review submissions and offer Exceptional Children their informed and sage advice. We hope readers will appreciate the work of dozens of scholars in conducting and reporting these research articles and the efforts of EC’s field editors and ad hoc reviewers.Without their contributions, our work would be very difficult.