Special Education Today newsletter 5(43)
This is only another update and it covers the week that began 20 April 2026
Welcome to this week’s issue of the Special Education Today newsletter. If you are a regular, you’ll know what to expect in this newsletter. If you are new to the neighborhood, here is your advance organizer: This issue includes a photo (that may or may not be related to special education and disabilities), some administrative notes, a sorta-kinda table of contents, and (maybe) some editorial notes and comments.
If you are a regular reader, then you likely can predict that this issue of the newsletter includes those things. I hope that knowing about the contents does not deter either new or regular readers from reading this week’s contents.
Photo
The accompanying mini-video is of a Great Crested Flycatcher in the SET neighborhood. Here’s a link to an earlier one May of 2024 and one from May of 2025. We have had them nesting in cavities on or near our porch for many years. My fantasy is that the mating pair returns to its previous nesting area year after year, so the one in this photo nested near our house in years gone by.
As we understand, in the spring the male of a pair arrives earlier than the female, scouts potential nesting spots, and then (using its distinctive call) invites a female to join him. They build a nest (often containing a snake skin) and raise young.
This year, the so-far-unaccompanied male has been spending a lot of time around our house. I have seen it repeatedly flying into at least five different windows around the house, as shown in this brief video. My supposition is that the bird, obeying messages from its genes, is flying at the windows to dispatch other male GVFs that it sees in the glass. It’s thinking that it has to get those potential rivals to leave the neighborhood, so he and his mate can have babies that survive (and carry on the genes that are sending him those messages).
Ain’t speculating on the causes of behavior fun? My hypothesis is reasonable (minus the “messaging” part?), but it would be a challenge to prove them scientifically. I mean…how does one do an FA when one of the hypotheses is that there’s a genetic cause? That’s a challenge, but if any of you, Dear Readers, have recommendations about how to conduct such an analysis, I would be glad to learn about those plans.
The side point here is important to me. It bugs me when people assert that they know why one of our kids does X, Y, or Z. How do they know? How does anyone know such things? We can, indeed, conduct FAs, and they provide pretty dang strong evidence about causes of behavior. However, I would prefer that people a little more honest: “I think she does X because of M.” Let’s admit that those are hypotheses about the causes of behavior.
What bugs me more? When the speculated cause of a behavior is unobservable-untestable belief about how behavior works. Sigh.
Meanwhile, let me not dwell on my predilections and perseverate on my personal irritants. Let’s get on to discussing what else has happened the past week in SET land.
Updates
Thanks to all you wonderful Dear Readers for your continuing readership. I am regularly encouraged when I open the administrative Web page for SET and see that 100s and 100s of y’all have taken a look at a recent post.
I’m happy to welcome Micki D. to the ranks of the contributing subscribers. She joins lots of people whom she probably knows (and some she probably doesn’t know). The gang of supporters includes Alexis F., Amanda H., Angelique W., Ann R., Anna O., Bear A., Bev J., Bob P., Callie O., Candace S., Carol W., Cheryl D., Cheryl Z., Christy A., Dan H., Ed P. Ed M., George S., Jane B., Jane N., Jean S., Jenni R., Jim P., Jim S., Judy V., Keith L., Kimy L., Kristen A., Kristin S., Larry M., Luann D., Meg. D., Nancy C.-W., Nancy M., Nancy S., Paige P., Pam S. (both of you), Riley M., & Tom Z. Some of these folks have been hanging with SET since the early going, which I noted in a post called “The early birds” this past week.
And, thanks to you Super-Dear Contributing Readers who have kept renewing your subscriptions. I appreciate you letting Substack (via Stripe) hit your credit card every year (or month) for the fee for SET. You can always (when logged in on the Substack Web site) check the status of your subscription by visiting https://substack.com/settings.
Also, it’s a good time to say “thank you” to the fine contributing authors of SET: Li-Yu Hung (National Taiwan Normal University), John Romig (Florida State University), Ana Paula Martins (University of Minho), Mitchell Yell (University of South Carolina), Mandy Rispoli (University of Virginia), and David Bateman (university of all over the place…I’m not sure where he is this week).
Where have I been this past week? As some Dear Readers know, I drop comments on other ‘stacks. If you follow my activity (i.e., “notes feed”), you’ll get notices when I drop a comment elsewhere (and tag it to go to the feed). Some of those notes are kinda-sorta frivolous (e.g., I reported the start of the parap-athletes at the Boston Marathon), but most are actually serious. Here’ are links to a few recent comments: On (a) P. Coyne’s report about DI implementations; (b) Doctor K. Panthagani’s post about logical arguments; (c) K. Vaites’s post about testifying to a school board; (d) G. Ashman’s observations about bogus views on math; (e) Dr. Bill Tozo’s notes on evidence; (f) K. Swenson’s post about hearing happy birthday from her son; and (f) K. Challen’s post about residential placements. Is it worthwhile to have these links in the newsletter?
A bit of good and big news for this week is that SET welcomes a new contributing author. Pamela M. Seethaler is among us now. Pamela is a fine researchers who hangs out at Vanderbilt University, and we are glad to have her in the house. You’ll see her initials in the list of stories for this week (in the next section).
Spedlettes
Here’s the catalog of posts on SET for the last week. Look for the initials of Pamela Seethaler on one of these posts.
Special Education Today newsletter 5(42): This missive is the update for the week that began 13 April 2026 [JWL]
Featuring teaching: What does David Didau explain by describing different approaches to engaging children? [JWL]
P. Coyne examined DI implementations in the real world: What can we learn from the experiences of actual schools using Direct Instruction approaches? [JWL]
US autism identifications skew toward White boys: Who is and is not being identified as autistic? [JWL]
C. Ullmer interviewed a boy with multiple disabilities: What might it be like raise a child who has substantial, multiple disabilities? [JWL]
Festschrift for Lynn Fuchs: Isn’t this a wonderful remembrance of a wonderful peron’s contributions? [PMS & JWL]
Friday catch-up notes—24 April 2026: What should’ve-maybe appeared as a post this week? [JWL]
US agency approved gene therapy for deafness: The US FDA moved quickly when the research confirmed earlier international research [JWL]
The early birds: Whom am I celebrating at this time of year? [JWL—who else?]
There you have the corpus of posts for the week beginning 20 April 2026.
Notes & comments
I keep encountering articles, posts, and messages about the importance of evidence-based practice in education. Some of what I see is sometimes a bit misleading, as Wayne Cointelpro explained in listing some misrepresentations that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., promoted and Kristen Panthagani noted in her fine post about public health this past week. Sad-to-say, those things happen in special education, too. Sigh.
But I think we can continue to pursue evidence-based practices by employing what we find in the research literature. Now some of that research is more valuable than other research we might encounter. And we also need to be discerning users of the researcher literature. We should not make the rookie mistake of searching for research that supports our previously established beliefs (“Oh, Professor, can you help me me find research that proves that XYZ is the best method for kids with dysgraphia?”). We need to winnow the research for studies that actually tell us about effective practices. I’m working on a longer article that explains what research we need to seek.
But, using evidence-based practices goes beyond wisely selecting practice. Even when we find practices that have proven track records for success, that have been shown to be effective, we need to go a step farther. To be sure, we should employ those practices that have been shown to be effective, but in addition, knowing that our kids are pretty special, we need to recognize that those practices, procedures, and methods that have been shown to be effective in research may not be particularly helpful for some of our kids. Those practices are a good bet, but we need to make sure that they are working for our Jaimes and Marys.
That is one of the reasons that we should our students’ monitor progress. We should make dang sure that those generally effective methods do, in fact, benefit our kids. If they do, hooray! If they do not, get them the heck out of there, replace them with enhancements or even another method that has a track-record of success. And continue to monitor progress, in case the kiddos are still not making progress.
Our kids don’t have time to waste. They, nearly by definition, are behind and we need to be efficient in helping them learn…else they’ll just behinder and behinder. Ugh.
And, that, Dear Readers, is why it’s important to keep yourselves healthy and vigorous. Eat well (and good). Get that rest. Stay safe. Make sure you can be there to teach your children well.
JohnL
John Wills Lloyd, Ph.D.
Founder and Editor, Special Education Today
SET should not be confused with a product that uses the same name and is published by the Council for Exceptional Children. SET predated CEC’s publication by decades. Despite my appreciation for CEC, this product is not designed to promote that organization nor should the views expressed here be considered to represent the views or policies of that organization.