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Abstract

This issue of Exception Children, we think, is exceptionally rich. There are articles examining important practices, policies, and research methods. The first three papers are about “SMART” research design, which stands for “sequential multiple-assignment randomized trial” and provides guidance about how to design analyses of multitiered programs. In our regular reports of research for this issue, we also have three articles. They examine preparing special education teachers, teaching of fractions, and policy for students with visual impairments. In the first article in the special series on SMART designs, Roberts and colleagues explain how SMART designs can be used to understand the contributions of multitiered models of intervention. As most special educators know, familiar models of instruction (e.g., response to instruction and positive behavior intervention systems) require repeated decisions about which students receive secondary or tertiary interventions. Roberts et al. illustrate how researchers can enhance the strength of studies examining those tiered systems. Kasari and colleagues report about how they used a SMART design to study the acceptability and feasibility of social skills interventions for students with autism. Across more than 30 classrooms, the researchers found that both educators and parents had views about desirability, feasibility, and benefits of interventions implemented by both groups. In the third entry in the special series, Fluery and Towson describe how young children with autism started in a large-group dialogic reading intervention and then were given adaptive instruction based on their progress. Although teachers’ implementation of the system increased, there were minimal effects on engagement and growth on a vocabulary outcome. These results provide direction for educators examining both dialogic reading processes and tiered systems of instruction. In our first article, not a part of the special section, Theobald and colleagues report results of a study of teacher education. They followed teacher education graduates who had preparation in special education to see how their career paths progressed. They found that whether the teachers were endorsed in both general and special education and whether they completed student teaching with a teacher who was endorsed in special education affected the chances that the teacher candidates would actually take positions teaching special education. Jayanthi and colleagues examined methods for teaching fractions to fifth graders who were struggling in mathematics. In a randomized control trial, they studied whether teaching concepts and procedures with an emphasis on manipulatives, number lines, and writing explanations led to greater proficiency and understanding of fractions. Schles and colleagues examined the provision of services for students with visual impairments. They found that states in the United States provided supports for more than 3 times as many students with visual impairments than the states reported in annual child counts. From interviews with administrators, they learned that federal reporting requirements are inadequate, and they suggest changes in the U.S. system. As readers should be able to infer, these articles represent many different aspects of learning about and providing services to exceptional children. We hope that readers will find that they help advance their understanding of special education.