Sociodemographic profiles of high school students across multiple types of special needs and disabilities

A paucity of population-based research explores the prevalence and sociodemographic characteristics of high school students with varieties of special needs and disabilities. Utilising a population-based sample of self-reported data collected in British Columbia, Canada, we investigated the scope and sociodemographic characteristics of adolescents between and within multiple categories of physical, mental, emotional and behavioural needs - including those with two or more conditions and no conditions. First, we computed the most commonly occurring and least commonly occurring special needs categories. Second, we created profiles of the broad sociodemographic characteristics of adolescents in each special needs category. Finally, we determined whether the profiles indicated statistically significant between- and within-category heterogeneity. We found that over one-quarter of adolescents had one or more special needs, while nearly three-quarters of the special needs subpopulation had only three of the nine special needs tracked. Also, whether adolescents with a given special need were compared to those from different categories or those within the same category, there was considerable diversity in their sociodemographic attributes. Our study is one of the first to describe adolescents with special needs in this population-based fashion. We hope that our findings may guide programme and policy development in British Columbia and around the world.