Special Education Research Grants

Special Education Research Grants is sponsored by U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences (IES), National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER). NCSER supports rigorous research on infants, toddlers, children, and youth with and at risk for disabilities, including autism, through advancing the understanding of and practices for teaching, learning, and organizing education systems.

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.

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 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 This study will examine the initial efficacy of an intervention combining two existing evidence-based interventions, Check and Connect (C C) and the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction (SDLMI), for students with disabilities who are at risk for school failure.

The outcomes of interest in this study include both secondary school/transition outcomes (academic achievement, self-determination, and graduation) and postsecondary outcomes (access to and progress in postsecondary... **Federal Funding Program:** Special Education Research Grants (ALN 84.

324A) The purpose of this study is to examine the associations between variations in education contexts, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) policy use, and effectiveness of efforts to address racial disproportionality in special education across varied state education agency (SEA), local education agency (LEA), school, and community contexts.

Racial disproportionality in special education and exclusionary discipline represents a long-documented and extensively researched issue,... **Federal Funding Program:** Special Education Research Grants (ALN 84.

324A) The Principal Investigator (PI) will conduct a program of research focused on the relationships between elementary school special educators' working conditions (job demands and resources to meet those demands) and educator and student outcomes. As the number of students with disabilities served in the general education classroom continues to grow, special educators increasingly work in inclusive settings.

Prior research has described challenging working conditions for special educators in... **Federal Funding Program:** Research Training Programs in Special Education (ALN 84. 324B) The goal of this project is to design and test a team-based professional development intervention for transition educators—secondary special educators, transition specialists, related services, and support staff.

An initial professional development (PD) model, the Transition Coalition Self-Study (TCSS), has shown emerging promise for increasing educators' knowledge of transition assessment with the potential to improve transition IEPs. The original TCSS was a team-based model that used a... **Federal Funding Program:** Special Education Research Grants (ALN 84.

324A) The purpose of this study is to compare two implementation strategies for a social engagement intervention that supports autistic children and their non-autistic peers during recess. Many students who are socially isolated in school would benefit from support to develop friendships and improve peer-related social skills. Autistic students in particular often ask for this kind of support when interviewed.

However, training and resources for school staff to support students in social... **Federal Funding Program:** Special Education Research Grants (ALN 84.

324A) This study will evaluate the impact of an online bullying prevention professional development program-Disability Anti-Bullying Training for Elementary Special and General Education Teachers (DIAL PD)-on teacher self-efficacy, skills, and practices in bullying identification, prevention, and mitigation among youth with or at risk for disabilities.

Bullying remains a pervasive problem for school-aged youth in the U.S., especially for students with disabilities, who are disproportionately... **Federal Funding Program:** Special Education Research Grants (ALN 84. 324A) This study will evaluate the impact of a social and emotional learning (SEL) program plus a bully prevention program for students in grades K–5 on SEL, academic, and school climate outcomes.

Bullying has become a pervasive problem in the United States. Although policies mandate that schools address bullying, many programs do not identify or target specific student populations who may be at heightened risk for involvement, such as students with or at risk for disabilities. Interventions...

**Federal Funding Program:** Special Education Research Grants (ALN 84. 324A) The purpose of this study is to integrate digital health (dHealth) technology into the Collaborative Life Skills Program (CLS), an established, school-based behavioral intervention for students with ADHD, to make the program accessible to schools that serve students from low-socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds.

Existing evidence-based interventions for students with ADHD are often inaccessible in schools with limited resources to support implementation. By adapting CLS to include a dHealth... **Federal Funding Program:** Special Education Research Grants (ALN 84.

324A) The purpose of this project is to build understanding of associations between specific social experiences at school and academic outcomes among adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Most students with ASD spend a significant amount of their school day in a general education setting, and there is a pressing need to understand how to promote positive education outcomes in these settings.

Compared to their typically developing peers, adolescents with ASD are less likely to report... **Federal Funding Program:** Special Education Research Grants (ALN 84. 324A) The goal of this project is to develop a shared reading intervention for preschool children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) designed to be delivered by caregivers in their homes.

A large portion of school-age learners with ASD experience reading difficulties. These deficits often emerge in preschool, making the early childhood years an optimal time to intervene and prevent future difficulties. Shared book reading interventions-where caregivers read aloud with children-are a well-studied ...

**Federal Funding Program:** Special Education Research Grants (ALN 84. 324A)