Steeper summer learning losses for students with disabilities contribute to widening disparities with peers¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r? · q2
Currency · newest study 2021 · checked against its sources 2026-10-17 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Students with disabilities experience steeper summer learning loss than students without disabilities, which contributes to widening achievement disparities. → Angela Johnson 2021

Evidence¶

Angela Johnson 2021¶

Angela Johnson, Elizabeth Barker. (2021). Understanding differential growth during school years and summers for students in special education. NWEA Research brief. https://www.nwea.org/research/publication/understanding-differential-growth-during-school-years-and-summers-for-students-in-special-education/ doi:10.3102/1879659

q2 · i? · associational · r?

The brief's description of its research on differential growth during school years and summers states that "steeper summer learning losses for students with disabilities contribute to widening disparities" relative to peers without disabilities. No quantitative effect sizes are printed on the page.

"steeper summer learning losses for students with disabilities contribute to widening disparities"

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Time and Continuity — predictor: learners who differ on it differ in outcomes
• Learning Disabilities and Developmental Differences — predictor: learners who differ on it differ in outcomes

Related Claims¶

• Summer learning loss is common but not inevitable among K-12 students — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it

• Students with disabilities attained postsecondary readiness and success outcomes at about one half to one third the rate of students without disabilities, the largest difference between any student group and its counterpart — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it

• Summer reading loss disproportionately widens academic gaps for low-income children — related
• Dually-identified EL/SPED students had the lowest scores with gaps widening over time, driven by larger summer loss — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Test score disparities between ever-SPED and never-SPED students grew from under 0.4 standard deviations in kindergarten to 0.9 standard deviations in 4th grade — related
• Low-income children's test scores drop relative to higher-income peers during the summer months — related
• Failure to transition to literacy early triggers a Matthew effect of widening reading and vocabulary gaps — related
• Students with disabilities in grades K-4 grow as much or more academically during some school years than peers without disabilities — related
• In math, ELs grew more than never-ELs during academic years but lost more during summers — related
• The reality of summer learning loss is more complex than the long-standing gap-widening account — related
• Early failure in phonetic recoding and decoding widens the acquisition gap between false beginners and successful learners over time — related