News: Special Needs Students

Judy Heumann, Special Education’s History of Litigation, and the Continuing Fight: Complacency and Defensiveness Still Stand in the Way of Students with Disabilities’ Rights

The passing of Judy Heumann, a special education advocate and legend, prompts this Blog’s review of the history of special education. The author reflects on his interactions with the advocates and lit...

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Solutions for Selectively Mute Students and Educators: The Long-Term Adverse Educational Effects When Inappropriate Behavior is Ignored

Two variations of being “selectively mute” in education are discussed in this Blog. The first involves a case study of a student who is selectively mute, and the assessment to intervention approaches...

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Was a First Grade Virginia Teacher Shot Because Her Student was Denied Special Education Services?

Blog describes how some districts do not have access to a continuum of special education services for students with behavioral challenges—including self-contained special education, day treatment, or...

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Reviewing the Educational Challenges of 2022: The Need for Improvement in the Midst of Academic Gaps, Discipline and SEL Problems, School Shootings, and Continued Disproportionality

Blog summarizes and provides links to Blogs published during 2022. Twenty-two Blogs are organized in four themes: School Improvement and Staff Effectiveness; Social Skills Instruction and Social-Emoti...

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Teaching Students Needed Academic and Social-Emotional Skills: We Need to Sweat the Small Stuff

Blog describes five vignettes that reinforce the importance that educators and related services professionals “sweat the small stuff.” We demonstrate that, to make big and meaningful academic and soci...

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Generation C (COVID) is Entering School with Significant Language, Academic, and Social Delays

This Blog reports the results of a number of recent studies and their descriptions of some of the delays exhibited by infants, toddlers, and preschoolers who have grown up during the pandemic. It then...

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