Special Education

Siblings’ Disabilities Linked to Academic Troubles for Brothers, Sisters

By Sarah D. Sparks — August 20, 2013 4 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

While schools are required to provide academic support for students with disabilities, a new study suggests the nondisabled siblings of disabled students may also be academically at risk.

Those brothers and sisters are 60 percent more likely to drop out of school than students without disabled siblings, according to a University of California, Riverside, study, presented at the annual American Sociological Association conference here. Moreover, sisters of disabled students are particularly disadvantaged. They complete one-plus years less schooling than girls with nondisabled siblings.

“This is a pretty large percentage of our children, and they have pretty large impacts on their families,” said Anna Penner, the study’s author and a sociology researcher at the University of California, Irvine. “Disabled children tend to require more resources,” she said. “So the family’s resources could be centered on that child and the sibling could have less.”

About 6.4 million students ages 3 to 21 have a disability, accounting for 13 percent of P-12 public schoolchildren, according to the most recent 2010-11 data from the National Center for Education Statistics. Based on those data, Ms. Penner estimated a third or more students may have at least one sibling with a disability.

“We know autism is something that happens to the whole family,” said Lisa Goring, the vice president for family services for Autism Speaks, a New York City-based advocacy group. “The stressors are unique to each family, but in general, parents have to spend a lot of time managing the education of the student with autism and the services involved, and that can make it challenging to provide support and spend time with the siblings.”

Prior studies have shown that having a child with disabilities can cause general family stress: Parents have a higher risk of divorce and mothers a higher risk of depression. Yet other studies have shown siblings of students with disabilities can have better social skills and compassion than those without such siblings.

Families Affected

The study looks at more than 5,200 young adults ages 19 and older, who participated in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth from 1986 to 2010. Each of the young people in the group had at least one sibling, and 1,974 of them had a sibling with a disability.

The siblings mentioned in the study had a wide range of moderate to severe disabilities, including deafness, autism, epilepsy, chronic nervous disorders, and severe physical or medical conditions. Ms. Penner said she plans to break down the effects of individual disabilities on students’ brothers and sisters in a future study.

After controlling for differences in students’ race, socioeconomic status, birth order, and family size, the study shows that women who had a sibling with a disability completed .62 fewer years of schooling—more than a semester’s worth of credit—than women with typically developing siblings. If a girl had a sibling with disabilities, her likelihood of dropping out of high school jumped from 15 percent to 27 percent—wiping out the gender gap that normally favors girls’ graduation rates.

Dwindling Time

Brothers were not as deeply affected by their siblings’ disability. For men overall, the difference between having a disabled or typically developing sibling was not significantly different when it came to academic achievement. Older brothers of disabled children proved slightly more likely to complete high school and additional years of schooling, while younger brothers and sisters of any age showed fewer years of schooling and less likelihood to graduate from high school.

However, for each additional sibling in the family, the brother or sister of a disabled student completed on average .13 fewer years of school, further suggesting that families struggled to provide enough time and resources for all their children when one required particular care.

Ms. Goring noted that schools and community organizations often provide support programs for siblings of students with disabilities—such as the Seattle-based Sibling Support Project—but those usually focus on social support, as students with disabilities and their siblings are at a higher risk of bullying. She knew of no academic programs targeting siblings of students with disabilities.

Ms. Penner, the study’s author, suggested that families may have different expectations for the brothers and sisters of a disabled child.

For example, prior studies have found sisters tend to perform eight hours more “care work"—such as baby-sitting or cooking for the family—than their brothers each week. And interviews with brothers of disabled siblings have suggested they feel more pressure to succeed academically to “make up for” a disabled sibling’s challenges and be able to provide for him or her financially.

A version of this article appeared in the August 21, 2013 edition of Education Week as Siblings’ Disabilities Linked to Academics for Brothers, Sisters

Events

Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and other jobs in K-12 education at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.
Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Special Education Video Inside an Inclusive Classroom: How Two Teachers Work Together
This model for inclusive education benefits students of all abilities, and the teachers instructing them.
1 min read
Special Education Using Technology for Students in Special Education: What the Feds Want Schools to Know
Assistive technology can improve outcomes for students in special education, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
4 min read
Black students using laptop in the lab with white female teacher- including a female student with special needs.
E+/Getty
Special Education Q&A Schools Should Boost Inclusion of Students With Disabilities, Special Olympics Leader Says
Schools have work to do to ensure students with intellectual and developmental disabilities feel a sense of belonging, Tim Shriver said.
6 min read
Special Olympics Chairman Timothy Shriver greets a child at one of the organization’s events.
Special Olympics Chairman Timothy Shriver greets a child at one of the organization’s events.
Courtesy of Special Olympics
Special Education Spotlight Spotlight on the Science of Reading for Students with Disabilities
This Spotlight will empower you with strategies to apply the science of reading to support students with learning differences and more.