Special Education Today newsletter 5(34)

Did any of the past week's activity slipped past you?

Welcome to the this week’s issue of the Special Education Today newsletter. It’s the 33rd newsletter for the 5th volume, and it covers the week that began 16 February 2025. As have most of the preceding newsletters, it includes a photo, some status notes, a list of recent posts, and a bit of an editorial.

When I started writing this issue, I reviewed some issues from the first volume, thinking I might find inspiration for some snappy beginning or comments. You know, “Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me….” Alas, there was nothing that inspired me. Maybe I should have been thinking, “Dear Mr. Fantasy, play us a tune….”

Photo

If one was walking along the Rivanna Trail next to Moore’s Creek and turned up hill toward our house, after cutting through about 30 m of brush, one would come upon this view of SET Central. Yep, those lower two windows that flank the rain barrel are the windows for the office from which many words have emanated.

A view of the SET central office from the outside. Photo © 2026 by John Wills Lloyd, Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

The photo was taken from pretty close to the spot where you, Dear Readers, may recall seeing a fox, some deer, and a few other visitors to the office. Although the office could legitimately be said to be in the “basement,” it is a pretty comfortable space for me. I prefer the term “garden level.”

If you’re ever ambling along the trail, please feel free to come on up. Knock on the window. We can visit!

Updates

When I was looking at four-year-old newsletters, I saw a spot where I acknowledged folks who had commented on posts the previous week. Here is a quote from the SET newsletter for 28 February 2022

Thanks to Mike G., Tina C., Michael K., Clay K., Li-Yu H., Jean C., and Mike N. for their comments on posts this past week. Y’all are doing the work that I hope will help turn the comments sections into conversations among members of the community.

That list of folks gave me reason to smile. Did you recognize any of them, Dear Readers? I hope so, ‘cause they’re still around these parts and they are still contributing to the SET community.

Now, back to the current situation. Shoutouts to Clay K. Jane B., Tom Z., Mike N., Paul C., Science of R., Carl H., and Tracy C. for comments and restacks this past week. I gratefully acknowledge those contributions. They really help folks out in the wilds of the Intertubes to understand what SET is doing.

According to Substack, SET has subscribers from 59 countries and 46 US states. Among the countries (other than the US), Australia, the UK, Morocco, and Canada are the homes of scores of subscribers. Wherever you call “home,” Dear Readers, please alert your neighbors, friends, family members, co-workers, colleagues, pals, and others about SET. Invite them to subscribe!

Welcome to the host of new free subscribers. You are among > than 1100 full on subscribers and > 1500 total followers. There are people here on SET who care about things you likely care about (e.g., kids with disabilities, teachers, teaching effectively, scientific research), so we’re glad you are here.

And thanks to John Romig, Mitchell Yell, Mandy Rispoli, Li-Yu Hung, Paula Martins, and David Bateman for reporting for SET.

Spedlettes

There were six new Spedlettes¹ on SET durning the last week. This list of them begins with the newsletter for 18 February 2026. They were all for everyone this week, so there are no subheadings. As usual, authors’ initials are in brackets.

1. Special Education Today newsletter 5(33): The newsletter for the week of 16 February 2026 [JWL]

2. Happy new year: What will people do to celebrate the beginning of the year of the horse? [L-YH & JWL]

3. Engelmann et al.: Educational logic and illogic: What are the problems with many explanations for educational problems? [JWL]

4. Article: Behavior problems increase among primary grade children: What is the venerable Hechinger Report publishing? [JWL]

5. Friday catch-up notes—2026-02-20: What tidbits didn’t show up as a full post this week? [JWL]

6. Autism sex differences may be illusory: What if the long-discussed sex difference in autism is a function of age at diagnosis? [JWL]

That is the corpus of posts for the week. Meager, I know. Sad. There's a little of this and that, some that will be of greater interest to some readers than to others, but I hope none that were of interest to no one.

Notes & comment

Here’s a little “inside baseball.”

This past week I added a new resource to the SET library. I referred to it in the post about the Engelmann et al. (2007) paper. So that the document would have a unique digital object identifier, I put it in a slightly different digital location than the earlier documents. However, that DOI makes the library the definitive location for the publication.

The DOI for the Engelmann et al. (2007) paper shown in the reference here seems to work fine (please let me know it if fails for you!). However, the way I had to create the location means that Dear Readers who follow the DOI for the Engelmann et al. article do not see, I fear, all the other special documents SET has published in the“library” (Special Education Resources Dissemination). Ugh.

So, I am working on a workaround. I want to make access seamless and comprehensive. I think it can be done. Meanwhile, there really are resources other than the Engelmann et al. article available. Here is a list of those available at the foregoing link:

1. Binder et al. (2002), Mastery-fluency paper;

2. Hallahan et al. (1982), Self-monitoring Manual;

3. Johns et al., RTI-MTSS critique;

4. Kauffman et al., Violence Statement;

5. Lloyd, Block Scheduling Notes;

6. Martin et al., EBD placement database;

7. Rispoli et al., ABCD poster;

You, Dear Readers of SET have access to all of them. And you can anticipate that you’ll have access to those published there in the future—just as with the Engelmann et al. (2007) article.

Okay, so I’ve run out of steam for this commentary. Sigh. I hope this peek at what’s happening in the office of SET central has been informative and helpful.

Allow me to remind you that I encourage you to take care of yourselves and each other. Please encourage your pals² to buckle up, drive carefully, eat healthily, exercise,³ and teach your students well. And thanks to each and every reader for everything that you do for kids with disabilities.

JohnL

John Wills Lloyd, Ph.D.
Founder and Editor, Special Education Today

Reference

Engelmann, S., Bateman, B. D., & Lloyd, J. W. (2007). Education logic and illogic. National Institute for Direct Instruction. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/KPU4Z

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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.

Footnotes

1. My enduring appreciation to Dear Reader and loooong-time paid subscriber, Joel M., for giving this section an appropriate name.

2. Include your family members and, shoot, even your enemies in the taking-care-of activities.

3. I have been slack, and I need to get better on this front so that I’ll be in good shape for the pending joint replacement surgery.