while many studies have considered only one characteristic of the student at a time, or used district- or school-level data to examine this issue, more recent studies have used large national student-level datasets and sophisticated methodology to find that the disproportionate identification of african american students with learning disabilities can be attributed to their average lower ses, while the disproportionate identification of latino youth seems to be attributable to difficulties in distinguishing between linguistic proficiency and learning ability. although the contributing factors are complicated and interrelated, it is possible to discern which factors really drive disproportionate identification by considering a multitude of student characteristics simultaneously. for instance, if high ses minorities have rates of identification that are similar to the rates among high ses whites, and low ses minorities have rates of identification that are similar to the rates among low ses whites, we can know that the seemingly higher rates of identification among minorities result from their greater likelihood to have low ses. summarily, because the risk of identification for white students who have low ses is similar to that of black students who have low ses, future research and policy reform should focus on identifying the shared qualities or experiences of low ses youth that lead to their disproportionate identification, rather than focusing exclusively on racial/ethnic minorities. it remains to be determined why lower ses youth are at higher risk of incidence, or possibly just of identification, with learning disabilities.