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An Overview of Findings From Wave 2 of the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (August 2006)

Publication Number: 2006-3004

This report is an executive summary of two previously-released reports presenting findings from Wave 2: The Academic Achievement and Functional Performance of Youth With Disabilities and After High School: A First Look at the Postschool Experiences of Youth with Disabilities.

Highlights

A direct assessment of students' language arts, mathematics abilities, and content knowledge in science and social studies suggests that from 77% to 86% of youth with disabilities have standard scores below the mean for the general population.

While about 2% of youth in the general population have standard scores that are more than two standard deviations below the mean (i.e., below 70), among youth with disabilities who participated in the NLTS2 direct assessment, from 14% to 27% had scores that were more than two standard deviations below the mean across subtests.

Up to 2 years after leaving high school, almost 8 in 10 out-of-school youth with disabilities have been engaged in postsecondary education, paid employment, or training to prepare them for employment.

About 3 in 10 out-of-school youth with disabilities have been enrolled in some kind of postsecondary school since leaving high school, with one in five attending a postsecondary school at the time of the Wave 2 interview. This rate of current enrollment is less than half that of their peers in the general population (41%).

• Complete Report

Suggested Citation

Wagner, M., Newman, L., Cameto, R., Levine, P, and Garza, N. (2006). An Overview of Findings From Wave 2 of the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2). Menlo Park, CA: SRI International. Available at www.nlts2.org/reports/2006_08/nlts2_report_2006_08_complete.pdf.