Dear dear folx,

You have here the weekly newsletter for Special Education Today. If you're getting it because someone forwarded it to you, please click the button at the end of this paragraph to start your own free e-mail subscription. If you no longer want to get the newsletters—and, oh how I hope you still want to receive them—you will find an "unsubscribe" link at the end.

In this, the 21st issue of the first volume-year of SET, you will see familiar content. As usual, it provides a brief status report for the site and the newsletter, acknowledges readers who interact with the content, refers to articles published on the Web site this previous week, and contains a bit of gratuitous commentary at the end. The organization should sound familiar to regular readers!

Status update

The number of e-mail subscribers continues to increase, now approaching 320. During the past week, there was a net gain of nearly one free-side subscriber per week. Over the last 30 days, the site has had > 1000 visitors, not counting y'all.

Whatever growth there is, it's thanks to you, dear readers. I sometimes drop a Tweet on Twitter, but growth is the result of your word-of-mouth (text-of-device?) efforts to let others know about SET. So, thank you for providing the support. Recommend SET! Parents, please tell your friends. Professionals, please share with parents, colleagues, and students. Meanwhile, I'll keep cranking out the content and hoping that that content is attractive enough that folks will want to subscribe!

Flashes of the electrons

This week's probably incomplete list shows SET pals who interacted with the magazine since the previous issue by either liking posts or commenting on them (or both). Thanks to everyone:

Clay K.,
Jane B.,
Lysandra C.,
Michael K.,
Tina C.

And all those whom I missed.

The most avid readers (not as in AVID literacy!) for this week were Donna P., Jane B., Tina C., Michael K., E (I don't know the actual name), E. G. (couldn't find a name), Lysandra C., & David H.

And This Week’s ToC

There were five new posts on SET since the last newsletter. I hope that they are helpful. Here's a listing:

1. ASAT Newsletter for November 2021

2. Research about the benefits of intranasal oxytocin therapy for autism

3. Arthritis and special education

4. Friday Photos (This one is special for me. It’s a child whom I knew. She passed away recently.)

5. Behavior management #7: Analyzing functions of behavior

Although the behavior management post took hours (& hours) to create, this week's posts don't see quite as exhausting as last week's!

Commentary

Regular readers may have sensed that some posts are items about recurring topics. The behavior management series illustrates this. Similarly, there are multiple posts about reading. And, I'm working on a series of posts about understanding research.

As I explained a couple of weeks ago, my goals with these series is to help readers to understand evidence on the topics and to make transparent what educators and parents can do to improve outcomes.

Now, some academic colleagues may find my presentations wanting. Perhaps I have have mis- or ill-represented some of the ideas I cover in the posts. I hope that they will provide thoughtful, grounded corrections and amplications of the posts. Add comments!

I also, especially, hope that parents and teachers will learn about the scientific underpinnings of special education. If the presentations are not clear, please help me clarify what I'm communicating. Tell me what you find confusing! Add comments!

OK, a little about my world recently: A few days ago, I interrupted my regular 2- to 4-mile walk to watch as a crew prepared to and began taking down two ivy-covered trees behing a neighbor's (James's) house not more than a half-mile from my house. The crew brought in a small crane, a truck with a chipper, and another truck with lots of chains saws and such. The crane hoisted one member of the crew over the roof of the house so that he could begin the usual top-down (!) removal of the tree that professional tree peeps use; as you can see in the accompanying photo, he got into a sling and rode to the top of the right tree behind James's house, and began cutting parts out parts of it. He stayed in the tree, attached ropes to the cut parts, and let the crane swing the cut parts back over the house to the members of the team waiting at the chipper. Now, that's admirable teamwork!

Sometimes, special educators perform analagous high-wire acts! They benefit from collaborating with professionals and parents. They work by a plan. They have designated roles. And they get the job done!

OK, it's time for me to sign off for tonight. It's getting late on Sunday, and the change to standard time (for those in the US) is affecting me a bit. So, let me implore you, dear readers, to wear your seatbelts (I don't want any of you to stop being a reader because you die in an auto accident), get vaccinated or get a booster (and do the same for your childen), use other protective measures (social distance, masks, ventilation), teach your children well.

JohnL
SET Editor guy
Charlottesville

SET should not be confused with a product with the same name that is published by the Council for Exceptional Children. SET predated CEC’s publication by decades. Nor should it be confused with a blog maintained by a law firm known as KCS, LLP. Despite my appreciation for CEC and admiration for advocacy companies, this product is not designed to promote either organization.