Students who entered special education for children with serious emotional disturbance (SED) during elementary or secondary school were followed up 8 years later on average to learn characteristics of the course of their SED: duration, placement settings, and educational disposition at the time of discontinuation of their SED services. The 78 elementary students with SED averaged slightly more than 4 school years of SED services, and a majority experienced placement in SED classrooms both in general education schools and in separate SED centers. The 95 secondary students with SED averaged a little over 2 school years of placement, primarily in SED centers. At follow-up, 74% of the younger students had experienced either a successful outcome (47%) or were still in SED programming (27%). In the secondary group, the students were more likely to have an unsuccessful (58.9%) rather than a successful (40.0%) outcome. Given the serious problems of students with SED at enrollment, SED classrooms may improve their educational prognosis more than anticipated.
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