What Research Hath Wrought
Have kids with disabilities benefitted from research ?
Some Dear Readers of Special Education Today, may have cheered my editorial commentary in “Restoring Gold Standard Science: Could special education benefit from the US president's executive order?” Others may have jeered. Some may have thought, “What on Earth has government-funded research done for my kids and me?”
Uhm…. This post waves a few flags at that last question.
What has research done for us?
I consider myself a legitimate (“card carrying?”) member of the special education research community, so I shall provide a few responses that illustrate what US federally funded research has done for kids, teachers, parents, and others connected to the service of children and youths with disabilities. I may not be speaking for every one but I think I speak for at least a few members of the guild.
To be sure, readers should know that I have an allegiance to special education research. Yes, disclosure that I’ve had financial support from “the feds” to do research. But read on and hold that disclosure “in mind.” That is, please consider the following sections on their own merit, without thinking about what my “motivation” might be.
Kids with severe disabilities read?
To some—and only some—readers of SET, it may seem preposterous that kids with severe disabilities can read. Uhmmm. research shows not only that our kids can read, but also how to teach them. What research? Studies by Diane Browder Fred Spooner, Jill Allor, Patty Mathes (and many others) repeatedly have shown what we educators can do for these children and youth (see Browder et al., 2012 , for an example supported by US grant funds).
CBM
Much of the work by Stan Deno and colleagues in creating and validating curriculum-based measurement that I featured in the post, “HB, Sten Deno,” (23 May 2025), was funded by US federal grants.1 It takes time and $$ to collect data in dozens or scores of schools from 100s or 1000s of children, so researchers who develop and study the trustworthiness of instruments often need financial support to conduct the research. Sometimes, in the case of measurement instruments (say an achievement test), a publisher will front the funds to field test and validate an instrument with the hope that sales of the instruments will not only recover the costs but also generate handsome profits.
With CBM, there wasn’t a publisher to support the work (though companies have emerged with versions of progress-monitoring tools). “The feds” supported work by Stan and his colleagues to develop and refine CBM.
In the case of CBM, the idea and practices are used quite widely. Teachers collect reading (e.g., oral reading fluency), spelling (e.g., letter sequences correct), or math (e.g., correct digits written) pretty routinely with special education (and general education) students. Although the idea sprang from US funded work, it’s applied in lots of places on Earth (see, for examples, the work of Leonor Ribero and Paula Martins, 2024, in Portugal).
Check-in, check-out
]I’m willing to bet that many (MANY) readers of SET know the idea of “check-in, check out,” thought they may know it by a locally specific term. The student carries a “card” listing goals (actions) she gets early in the school day at a meeting with an adult (check in); when the day ends, she might return to that adult and show the card with all the actions she completed and “check out” for the day. CiCo is frequently used in PBIS supports. Probably many teachers and coaches employ or recommend CiCo. Especially with efforts to include kids with disabilities in “the mainstream,” this simple technique has become widespread.
Well, part of that reason for its widespread use is that there were lots of studies about CiCo funded by the US federal government (e.g., Todd et al., 2003).2 If you're a practicing special educator, I hope you use CiCo as a routine strategy in a manner consistent with that research.
Defining (and treating) dyslexia
Difficulties with reading, often referred to as dyslexia, have been a source of consternation for parents and educators since at least the later 1800s (e.g, Hinshelwood, 1896). Thanks to substantial US government investment in research in the 1980s and 90s, educators (and scientists) have a substantially greater understanding of reading and reading disabilities. Grants provided by the US National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (under the direction of friend-of-SET, Reid Lyon) helped establish the biological basis of dyslexia as well as instructional practices for preventing and correcting reading problems.
Self-monitoring
Have any of readers employed a self-monitoring or self-recording intervention? By “self-monitoring or self-recording,” I mean methods where students assess and record their own behavior, as if they are observing themselves. Well, in the 1970s, this was a novel idea. Dan Hallahan3 got grant funds to study whether it helped kids with attention problems to “focus.”
Dan and his team4 completed a shipload of studies about self-monitoring. He published a little how-to book about self-monitoring. that SET made available previously (see “Our manual for self-monitoring of attention Would you believe you can still get a copy of this document, even though it was written in 1981?”).
He did this work with the support to US federal funding.
Summary
So hey, DRs. Let’s think big here. As I see it, governmental investment in research about disabilities and special education has been a “huge net plus.” My meager illustrations underestimate the benefits (for an excellent list of other benefits not so much about special education, see the the commentary by Vivian Wang, Elizabeth Tipton, and Jessica Spybrook, 2025), but they provide us an argument we can mount when people tell us that US federal support of special education is unnecessary, or should be relegated to the states.
I hope that we Americans do not abandon investments in special education research.
References
Browder, D., Ahlgrim-Delzell, L., Flowers, C., & Baker, J. (2012). An evaluation of a multicomponent early literacy program for students with severe developmental disabilities. Remedial and Special Education, 33(4), 237-246. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741932510387305
Hinshelwood, J. (1896). A case of dyslexia: A peculiar form of word-blindness. 1. The Lancet, 148(3821), 1451-1454. https://ia800805.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/13/items/crossref-pre-1909-scholarly-works/10.1016%252Fs0140-6736%252801%252959963-8.zip&file=10.1016%252Fs0140-6736%252801%252960603-2.pdf
Lyon, G. R., Shaywitz, S. E,, & Shaywitz, B. A. (2003), Defining dyslexia, comorbidity, teachers’ knowledge of language and reading: A definition of dyslexia. Annals of Dyslexia, 53(1), 1-14,
Ribero, L. C. D., Martins, A. P. L, Y Moefado, J. C. (2024). Monitorização com base no currículo em escolas inclusivas em Portugal: implicações para a aprendizagem da leitura [Curriculum-based measurement in inclusive schools in Portugal: Implications for learning to read]. Educação e Pesquisa 50(3-4), https://doi.org/10.1590/S1678-4634202450274887
Sparks, Sarah D., (2022). Why Special Education Research Is So Important Now. Education Week, 16 December 2022. https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/why-special-education-research-is-so-important-now/2022/12
Todd, A. W., Campbell, A. L., Meyer, G. G., & Horner, R. H. (2008). The effects of a targeted intervention to reduce problem behaviors: Elementary School Implementation of Check In—Check Out. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 10(1), 46-55. https://doi.org/10.1177/1098300707311369 (Original work published 2008)
Wang, V. C., Tipton, E., & Spybrook, J. (2025). How federal investments in education research help students succeed. Brookings Institute, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-federal-investments-in-education-research-help-students-succeed/
footnotes
The word “grant” is used pretty sloppily in the research world, I fear. For example, you may hear a professor say, “I’m writing a grant” when what she really means is that she is writing an application for grant funding. I use the word “grants” broadly here. I think the funding for the Minnesota Institute for Research in Learning Disabilities that supported lots of Stan’s research was technically a “contract” or a “cooperative agreement,” terms that the lawyers use to label certain funding mechanisms.
When Anne Todd was in college, she was a pal. Before she went on to work on PBIS strategies, she helped care for our daughter and even collected data for my dissertation. Great memories
Dan Hallahan, as long-time subscribers know, is a co-founder of the original Special Education Today. I feel as if I ought to explain that I get no financial benefit by mentioning Dan. Amazon, Google, and other big $$ don’t send me compensation for mentioning him. That is, I’m not getting rich by sending Dear Readers to links about Dan. But you should know about him
I was part of that team. I sax mostly rest;onsible for designing the research methods of the studies.