National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER) Grants

National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER) Grants is sponsored by Institute of Education Sciences. NCSER offers grants for research projects that aim to improve educational outcomes for students with disabilities, including neurodivergent students.

The National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER) supports rigorous research on infants, toddlers, children, and youth with and at risk for disabilities through advancing the understanding of and practices for teaching, learning, and organizing education systems. Support is provided through multiple programs.

Special education case managers spend 3 to 10 hours creating each Individualized Education Program (IEP), with time requirements varying significantly by IEP type. Annual reviews require 3 to 4 hours while initial IEPs can demand 6 to 10 hours. Administrative tasks consume substantial portions of educators' workweeks, contributing to 38% of special educators reporting clinical anxiety or depression and annual attrition rates of 13.

2%. **Federal Funding Program:** Small Business Innovation Research The purpose of this project is to develop and test BuddyBooks-LD, an enhanced version of the existing BuddyBooks literacy platform designed specifically for students with learning disabilities in grades 2–8.

While BuddyBooks has demonstrated significant gains in fluency and comprehension for struggling readers, BuddyBooks-LD will integrate new features to address decoding, vocabulary, and engagement challenges that are particularly persistent for students with learning disabilities.

**Federal Funding Program:** Small Business Innovation Research For blind adults, braille literacy directly correlates with academic achievement and employment (NBP, 2024); however, only 8% of blind children in the US are being taught braille today (APH, 2023; NBP, 2024; NFB, 2022). Most blind students attend public schools, where they receive braille instruction from itinerant specialists (TVI’s).

Most TVI’s are not trained in phonics instruction. K-3 general education teachers are trained to teach reading, but not braille.

**Federal Funding Program:** Small Business Innovation Research This project will develop and evaluate Shoonya Kids, a multilingual, game-based learning platform that supports mathematics and early literacy instruction for English Learners (ELs) in preschool, transitional kindergarten, kindergarten, and first grade.

Many ELs lack access to culturally relevant, language-supported math instruction, creating early learning gaps that persist through later grades.

**Federal Funding Program:** Small Business Innovation Research Immigrants are vital to the economic and cultural prosperity of the U.S. They are at the heart of our communities and power our diverse workforce—contributing rich cultural perspectives, driving innovation, and filling labor shortages and skills gaps in growing industries.

**Federal Funding Program:** Small Business Innovation Research The primary purpose of this project is to explore the use of extra time accommodations during mathematics testing for students with disabilities. Extended time for testing has repeatedly been identified as one of the most common accommodations offered to students with disabilities.

Although well intentioned, such frequent provision of extended time is concerning given that existing empirical work has demonstrated extended time provision to have only a very weak positive effect on test... **Federal Funding Program:** Special Education Research Grants (ALN 84.

324A) The purpose of this project is to develop and test Language and Play Every Day en español Online (LAPE-e Online), an adaptive, naturalistic communication intervention that uses new technology to coach Spanish-speaking Latinx caregivers to facilitate dual-language development in their young children with language disorders (LD).

The growing population of Latinx children under age 3 with LD in the United States is at significant risk for later developmental and academic challenges without... **Federal Funding Program:** Special Education Research Grants (ALN 84.

324A) The purpose of this project is to develop and test the promise of a narrative language and reading comprehension intervention called Guided, Explicit, Teaching of Oral and Written Narratives to Improve Narrative Text Comprehension (GET ON IT!) for emergent bilinguals with or at risk for reading disabilities (EBs with RD) in grades 2-4.

GET ON IT will provide a unique extension of an existing narrative language intervention called Supporting Knowledge in Language and Literacy (SKILL), which... **Federal Funding Program:** Special Education Research Grants (ALN 84.

324A) The purpose of this project is to conduct a systematic investigation of interventions for students with disabilities in kindergarten to 12th grade (K-12) that target the constructs in motivational, agentic, and self theories (MAST). Motivation theories seek to understand what drives humans to work towards particular goals. Agentic theories hold the view that humans are active contributors to, or agents of, their own behavior.

Self theories focus on how humans view themselves, which shapes... **Federal Funding Program:** Special Education Research Grants (ALN 84. 324A) The primary purpose of this project is to develop and validate a social, emotional, and behavioral risk screener for early childhood.

The assessment will be an online and application-based universal screening system available in both English and Spanish. There is a clear need to provide early intervention services to all children to support social-emotional and academic development. This can best be accomplished through the use of efficient screening systems to identify social-emotional...

**Federal Funding Program:** Special Education Research Grants (ALN 84. 324A) The purpose of this project is to evaluate the impact of Promoting Communication: Tools for Advancing Language in Kids (PC TALK) on infants and toddlers with and at risk for developmental delay and disabilities.

Given the pivotal role that experience with language plays in early vocabulary development, later reading, and school proficiency, ensuring that infants and young children have ample opportunities to learn language is of primary importance. Ongoing systemic inequities compounded by... **Federal Funding Program:** Special Education Research Grants (ALN 84.

324A) The purpose of this project is to develop and evaluate the promise of virtual reality (VR)-enhanced training modules to improve preservice teachers' implementation of function-based intervention for students with autism who demonstrate challenging behavior. Challenging behavior often prevents children with autism from accessing inclusive educational environments and negatively impacts learning.

Function-based intervention is an effective strategy for reducing challenging behavior, including ... **Federal Funding Program:** Special Education Research Grants (ALN 84. 324A) The purpose of this project is to develop and test the SUSTAIN intervention to enhance the working conditions of special educators serving students with emotional and/or behavioral disorders (EBD) in self-contained settings.

Special educators' working conditions are associated with a number of educator outcomes, including quality of instruction, burnout, and attrition. The need for interventions to improve working conditions is especially salient for special educators serving students with... **Federal Funding Program:** Special Education Research Grants (ALN 84.

324A) The purpose of this project is to develop and pilot test Parents Plus en Español (P+E), a parent-implemented intervention that is designed to improve Spanish language outcomes for children with developmental language disorder (DLD) through parent (or caregiver) use of focused stimulation, an evidenced-based language facilitating technique.

More than 40% of preschoolers with disabilities are diagnosed with DLD and require high-quality language services; yet, Spanish-speaking children with... **Federal Funding Program:** Special Education Research Grants (ALN 84.

324A) The purpose of this project is to test the efficacy of the NumberShire Level K (NSK) gaming intervention-previously developed through IES funding-for students with or at risk for mathematics learning disabilities (MLD).

NSK is a supplemental technology-based tool to allow educators to intervene early and strategically to accelerate early math learning and prevent more costly remediation of math difficulties in the later grades for students with or at risk for MLD. In this study, researchers ... **Federal Funding Program:** Special Education Research Grants (ALN 84.

324A)