Special Education Research: Ideas that Work

A Forum — May 5, 2000

Twenty-five years ago, Congress passed P. L. 94-142, the forerunner of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to increase the opportunities for youth with disabilities. Three years ago, IDEA was reauthorized with increased funds to support special education initiatives. Today, IDEA funds special education services for almost six million children, who are held to high academic standards and are going on to college and to challenging careers in unprecedented numbers. Much of the attention of policymakers has focused on the increased state funding in the 1997 reauthorization of IDEA. The American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF) organized this forum to inform Congressional staff and federal officials about the less-publicized Part D of IDEA, which focuses on research and infrastructure to strengthen the capacity of special education programs on the national, state and local levels.

Lou Danielson, Director of Research to Practice in the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), opened the presentation with an overview of Part D of IDEA. Danielson describes IDEA as "essentially a civil rights act for students with disabilities." Part D of IDEA actually predated the state grants that get so much attention today, and it has laid the foundation for these grants by providing research innovation, professional development of teachers and administrators, evaluation dissemination, and technical assistance to local special education programs. Part D of IDEA has a long history of improving behavioral outcomes, not just for students with disabilities, but for all youth in school. In the wake of the tragic shootings at Columbine High School, Danielson said that President Clinton called upon OSERS and the Department of Justice to produce a follow-up to their 1998 publication Early Warning and Timely Response Guide for Safe Schools. In April of this year, the Departments of Education and Justice jointly published Safeguarding Our Children: An Action Guide, a "how-to" manual to help schools prevent violence.

The action guides on safer schools emerged from IDEA funded research on improving student behavior, the specialty of Tim Lewis, an assistant professor at the University of Missouri. Lewis informed forum attendees that 22% of school age children exhibit "at-risk" behaviors and that the most common strategies to address these behaviors are informing parents and suspension or expulsion from school. Yet according to the research, school suspensions and expulsions, along with counseling and psychotherapy, are the least effective strategies to respond to at-risk behavior and school violence. After surveying more than 600 scholarly articles on behavior management in schools, Lewis noted that the most effective, research-proven strategies for improving student behavior were social skills training, academic restructuring, and early intervention.

These instruction-based strategies form the basis of the Positive Behavioral Intervention and Support (PBIS) model espoused by Lewis and OSERS. PBIS focuses on changing the learning environment rather than changing the student, which has been the primary strategy of traditional behavioral modification techniques. The key features of PBIS are: 1) a common set of expectations, 2) teaching critical skills, 3) consistency, 4) educator teamwork, 5) research data used to guide decisions, 6) strong administrative support, and 7) a focus on all kids. In one Missouri middle school where Lewis oversaw the implementation of PBIS, disciplinary office referrals dropped from 2600 in the 1994-95 school year to 600 in 1998-99. Far from the exception, Lewis argues that this is the normal result of PBIS in schools that implement the program fully, however, he warns that results are not nearly as good in schools with partial implementation.

Though the behavioral research sponsored by IDEA has garnered more attention in recent years with the high visibility of school violence, the heart of IDEA research is intended to raise the academic achievement and life opportunities of students with disabilities. Russell Gersten, a professor at the University of Oregon, presented findings on the strategies and academic outcomes of IDEA programs. The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) research surveyed by Gersten addresses higher order thinking and problem solving on an array of academic topics, including reading, writing, fractions, biology, and chemistry. OSEP research also highlights the importance of review, student discussion, peer teaching, and explicit instruction as concrete strategies to improve the success of students with disabilities. Peer teaching, for instance, produced a 57% increase in reading fluency among special education students taught by mainstream peers over a comparison group of students with disabilities taught by more traditional means. To teach writing, special education research suggests that explicit instruction is crucial. Gersten gives the example of teachers using "think sheets," which are worksheets that take students step-by-step through an outline to help them prepare to write opinion essays.

Renée Bradley, Special Assistant for Research to Practice at OSERS, concluded the formal presentation with a brief discussion of how policymakers and other interested parties can find out about IDEA and current research on special education. When an audience member asked how parents could learn more about national initiatives in this area, Bradley pointed to the 77 parent training centers across the country which inform parents of special needs students of their rights under the law.

The new research on special education sponsored by Part D of IDEA has obvious relevance for improving the school prospects of youth with disabilities, but it appears to contain important lessons for improving the learning environment for mainstream students as well.

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