No abstract

It is crucial that special education teachers are equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to improve outcomes for students with disabilities. Despite federal legislation and efforts of the field to identify and disseminate evidence-based practices for students with disabilities, it is uncertain whether all special education teachers provide instruction based on the best available research. To better prepare special education teachers, McLeskey et al. proposed 22 high-leverage practices (HLPs). We conducted this systematic review of meta-analyses to provide an initial investigation of the experimental evidence reporting on the effectiveness of the HLPs for students with, or at risk for, a disability. Results indicated the largest amount of evidence from meta-analyses related to intensive instruction, explicit instruction, and social skills, with few meta-analyses reporting on collaboration and assessment. The results highlighted disproportional evidence according to disability categories. Implications for future research, practice, and teacher education are discussed.

As part of a broader communicative system, language functions to represent and convey various forms of knowledge. Its multiple modes (e.g., comprehension, production) and dimensions (e.g., vocabulary, syntax,

Analyses were conducted with second graders, drawn from an ongoing multi-cohort randomized controlled trial (RCT), who had been identified for RCT entry based on comorbid reading comprehension and word-problem solving difficulty. To estimate pandemic learning loss, we contrasted fall performance for 3 cohorts: fall of 2019 (pre-pandemic; n = 47), 2020 (early pandemic, when performance was affected by the truncated preceding school year; n = 35), versus 2021 (later pandemic, when performance was affected by the truncated 2019 to 2020 school year plus the subsequent year’s ongoing interruptions; n = 75). Across the 2 years, declines ( SDs below expected growth) were approximately 3 times larger than those reported for the general population and for students in high-poverty schools. To estimate the promise of structured remote intervention for addressing such learning loss during extended school closures, we contrasted effects in the RCT’s 2018 to 2019 cohort (entirely in-person intervention delivery; n = 66) against the same intervention’s effects in the 2020 to 2021 cohort (alternating periods of remote and in-person delivery; n = 29). Large intervention effects were not moderated by pandemic status, suggesting potential for structured remote intervention to address student needs during extended school closures.

Despite calls for open science reforms in special education research, little is known about the perceptions or practices of special education researchers regarding open science. In this study, we modified the Open Science Survey (OSS) to examine the knowledge, attitudes, perceived norms, and behaviors of 155 special education researchers for three open science practices (posting preprints, sharing data, and preregistering studies). Researchers reported favorable attitudes toward each of the three practices, but low levels of implementation knowledge. Additionally, multiple linear regression revealed knowledge, attitudes, perceived norms, career stage, and methodological preference significantly predicted intent to engage in these open science practices. We provide recommendations for using findings to inform efforts to increase open science uptake in the field.