Inside IES Research

Today, we would like to highlight the work of Dr. Brook Sawyer, associate professor at Lehigh University. Dr. Sawyer plans to adapt and test whether Parents Plus (P+), an online parent-implemented intervention, accelerates the language development of preschoolers with developmental language disorders. We hope you enjoy this interview! 

*Responses have been edited for brevity and clarity.

National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER): How would you describe your research project in a sentence?  

Dr. Brook Sawyer: Our goal is to empower parents with knowledge and skills to improve the language skills of their preschool children with developmental language disorders. 

NCSER: What was the need that inspired you to conduct this research? 

Dr. Brook Sawyer: Language skills are imperative for healthy development, given that they are central to social relationships and academic learning. When children with developmental language disorders receive early-intervention services, such as speech-language services, their language skills improve. For preschool children, these early-intervention services are typically delivered in the preschool setting. Because speech-language pathologists have such large caseloads, they often are not able to effectively teach parents to facilitate their children’s language development. As such, we lose valuable opportunities to promote children’s language skills. By providing training to parents, we can provide children with many more high-quality opportunities to develop their language skills. 

NCSER: What outcomes do you expect to change with this research? 

Dr. Brook Sawyer: We expect that parents will gain skills to facilitate their children’s language development. In turn, we expect that children’s language skills will improve. 

NCSER: What inspired you to do research in special education? 

Dr. Brook Sawyer: Children with disabilities require additional support to develop skills. Additionally, parents and teachers need the tools to engage with children in positive and supportive ways. As both a parent and teacher myself, I understand how challenging it can be to provide optimal learning environments for children. I want to do all that I can to support parents and teachers and the children that they care for.   

NCSER: Why is this particular research project important to you?  

Dr. Brook Sawyer: Given the critical importance of language skills for social relationships and academic learning, we must provide children with developmental language disorders as many high-quality language-learning opportunities as possible to develop their language skills. Obviously, parents have an immensely important role in promoting their children’s development. Yet without education and support, parents can feel unempowered. We developed Parents Plus as a fully online program to provide a convenient way for parents to learn how to facilitate their children’s language skills.  

NCSER: How do you think this grant will impact special education?  

Dr. Brook Sawyer: Once children enter preschool, their special education services are typically delivered in schools, and it can be challenging to meaningfully involve parents. Given how important parents are in supporting their children’s development, we need to develop feasible and effective ways to empower parents with knowledge and skills. In this way, we can enhance the learning environments that children are receiving at home. 

NCSER: How will this project address challenges related to the pandemic?  

Dr. Brook Sawyer: Because children’s special education services were disrupted during the pandemic, critical learning opportunities were lost. By training and supporting parents, along with children receiving their typical speech-language services in preschool, children will experience increased opportunities to develop their language skills. As such, we expect that children’s language skills will improve more than if they only received language services in preschool. 

NCSER: What are some of the biggest challenges in special education research today? 

Dr. Brook Sawyer: Overall, I think parents, teachers, and related personnel—like speech-language pathologists—are very overwhelmed. They have many demands on their time and understandably may not feel they have the bandwidth to engage in research to develop and test new programs. We have experienced challenges in finding the best ways to let parents know about our project. 

NCSER: What’s one thing you wish more people knew about children and youth with or at risk for disabilities?  

Dr. Brook Sawyer: I’ll frame this particularly around the population of children that we focus on—preschool children with developmental language disorders (DLD). Individuals, including parents and teachers, may not recognize that preschool children with DLD are constantly communicating, and want to communicate, because children are communicating differently. For instance, children may be primarily communicating through behavior, even challenging behavior, because they do not yet have the verbal skills to express their wants/needs. When adults do not understand children’s behaviors as communicative acts, parents and teachers may not respond to children appropriately. As such, bids for connections and learning opportunities are lost. It is our goal in Parents Plus to teach parents to recognize and capitalize on opportunities to build language skills. In our initial pilot test, parents were anecdotally reporting to the coach that they were finding much more enjoyment being with their child once they had the knowledge to understand their children’s communicative acts—and the skills to respond. 

Further, some individuals believe that young children with DLD may “grow out of it.” However, if intervention is not provided in a timely manner, children’s language delays typically become magnified. As such, we need to intervene early and provide support for children in their natural settings, including preschool and home contexts.  

NCSER: What are some of the most exciting news/innovations/stories that give you hope for the future of special education research?  

Dr. Brook Sawyer: Technology is making it easier for parents and educators to individualize support based on a particular child’s needs. For example, we use remote coaching, where parents send short videos to their coach and receive individualized suggestions on how they can provide optimal language-learning opportunities for their child. By doing this remotely, it is more convenient for the parent and coach and cuts down on logistical challenges, like travel and childcare.

NCSER: What are some of the future goals for you and your team? 

Dr. Brook Sawyer: We hope to develop a culturally and linguistically adapted version of Parents Plus for Latine parents who speak Spanish in the home. 

Thank you for reading our conversation with Dr. Brook Sawyer! Come back tomorrow for our next grantee spotlight!  

We hope you enjoyed yesterday’s NCSER grantee spotlight! Today, we present to you Dr. Beth Stormshak, Knight Chair and professor at the University of Oregon. Dr. Stormshak’s project is to conduct an efficacy trial of the Family Check-Up Online to address emotional and behavioral challenges among middle school students with or at risk for disability during their transition back to school after the pandemic-related school closures. 

*Responses have been edited for brevity and clarity.

NCSER: How would you describe your research project in a sentence?  

Dr. Beth Stormshak: This research examines the Family Check-Up Online in a hybrid efficacy-effectiveness trial that provides support for schools to implement the model under ideal conditions, and then tests the ability of schools to implement and sustain the intervention under real-world conditions, with the goal of reducing mental health and behavior problems in students who have been identified as “high needs.” 

NCSER: What was the need that inspired you to conduct this research? 

Dr. Beth Stormshak: The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the dire circumstances that most schools are facing as they tackle the mental health and behavioral concerns of students. Staffing shortages, escalating rates of mental health problems, and limited resources have led to a crisis that needs to be addressed nationwide. 

NCSER: What outcomes do you expect to change with this research? 

Dr. Beth Stormshak: With this research, we expect to impact student outcomes—including mental health, behavior, attendance, and achievement—which we refer to as the “ABCs” of student success (attendance, behavior, and classroom performance). We also expect to impact staffing outcomes, such as training in evidence-based approaches to intervention and willingness to engage with parents and caretakers to improve student success. 

NCSER: What inspired you to do research in special education?   

Dr. Beth Stormshak: I am interested in evidence-based interventions that support students who are struggling both academically and behaviorally. My work began over 30 years ago with a focus on improving student behavior problems in schools and has now expanded to include mental health and wellness, which impact most students and families receiving special education services. 

“The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the dire circumstances that most schools are facing as they tackle the mental health and behavioral concerns of students. Staffing shortages, escalating rates of mental health problems, and limited resources have led to a crisis that needs to be addressed nationwide.”

NCSER: Why is this particular research project important to you?  

Dr. Beth Stormshak: There is clear evidence that supporting parents in building positive relationships with their child improves child behavior, mental health, and academic outcomes. Yet schools have few resources to administer family-centered interventions. My research bridges the gap between schools and families by testing a new tool for supporting families at home, with clear implications for school behavior. The ultimate goal of this research is to support parent skills and relationship building, which in turn will lead to reductions in student problem behavior and mental health concerns. 

NCSER: How do you think this grant will impact special education?  

Dr. Beth Stormshak: Special educators are unique in that they often interface with families more than other school personnel. They also have training in behavioral supports for students, making them ideal candidates to learn this model and apply it to school settings. I hope that our work will provide a sustainable tool for educators that can be used to improve student outcomes. 

NCSER: How will this project address challenges related to the pandemic?  

Dr. Beth Stormshak: Parents are more frustrated than ever with services provided to support student mental health. Schools are overwhelmed with students who need support, and communities do not have any additional resources to support families and students. This online program provides a cost-effective approach to service distribution that will have greater reach and impact than most programs currently available in schools and communities. 

NCSER: What are some of the biggest challenges in special education research today? 

Dr. Beth Stormshak: There are many challenges to special education research, including sustaining partnerships with schools when there is high turnover in staffing and limited resources at the school level to engage with the research community. Due to the crisis levels of staffing in most schools, it is challenging for schools to add “one more thing” to their plate. It is also a challenge for schools to identify staff for training and support in new programs. 

NCSER: What’s one thing you wish more people knew about children and youth with or at risk for disabilities?  

Dr. Beth Stormshak: Disabilities come in a variety of forms, and may include behavioral concerns, mental health concerns, and academic concerns. All parents want the best for their children, and many families struggle with approaches to behavioral management that are effective and helpful to their child. Many parents also feel blamed by schools or communities for their child’s disabilities. The Family Check-Up is strength-based and supportive, focusing on what parents are doing well and supporting parents to engage positively with their child. Our research on this model over 25 years suggests that parents who engage in the program will experience improvements in child behavior, mental health, and self-regulation, as well as their own parenting skills, stress, and depression. All of these outcomes lead to improvements in student achievement. 

NCSER: What are some of the most exciting news/innovations/stories that give you hope for the future of special education research?  

Dr. Beth Stormshak: There are many ways to intervene and support students. The COVID-19 pandemic has helped us focus on the mental health needs of students, and ultimately may change the way we think about schools, their role, and their engagement with families. The pandemic has also normalized telehealth and online support for students and parents. This has enabled the development of evidence-based programs, such as the Family Check-Up, to online platforms, which can be delivered asynchronously and therefore can reach large numbers of students that were, before, inaccessible. Ultimately this will lead to reductions in health disparities for many populations who have had limited access to mental health services. 

NCSER: What are some of the future goals for you and your team? 

Dr. Beth Stormshak: Our goals are to test the Family Check-Up Online in real-world settings and to adapt the model to fit the needs of schools across the country. Our work is community-based and we have engaged school providers in the process of development, carefully testing the feasibility and acceptability of this approach with school collaborators. We hope that this research provides insights into the process for implementing the model in schools, which can be applied to other schools across the United States who are interested in learning this model and providing this resource to parents and students. 

Thank you for reading our conversation with Dr. Beth Stormshak! Come back tomorrow for our next grantee spotlight!  

Welcome to the first installment of the National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER) grantee spotlight series! For the next two weeks, we’ll publish exclusive conversations with NCSER’s Research to Accelerate Pandemic Recovery in Special Education program grantees. NCSER is pleased to highlight researchers who are addressing the urgent challenges schools face to support students with or at risk for disabilities, their teachers, and their families in the aftermath of the pandemic.

Today, we want to present to you Dr. Erica Lembke, professor of special education at the University of Missouri. Dr. Lembke’s project, STAIR: Supporting Teaching of Algebra with Individual Readiness, aims to evaluate different levels of intensity of a professional development and coaching model for middle school special education teachers to accelerate pandemic recovery in mathematics for their students with disabilities.  

*Responses have been edited for brevity and clarity.

NCSER: How would you describe your research project in a sentence?   

Dr. Erica Lembke: Supporting Teaching of Algebra with Individual Readiness 2.0 (STAIR) provides just-in-time pandemic recovery intervention in special education by supporting teachers to address the needs of students with math difficulties through professional development and coaching that focuses on teaching teachers how to use data to inform their instruction.   

In honor of National Disability Employment Awareness Month, we discussed NCSER-funded research on transition support for students with disabilities with principal investigators Meg Grigal and Clare Papay. Transition services prepare students for life after school and can include activities such as job training, post-secondary education, and support for independent living and community participation. This research team’s project, Moving Transition Forward: Exploration of College-Based and Conventional Transition Practices for Students with Intellectual Disability and Autism, examines outcomes for two transition approaches: a college-based transition and the conventional approach provided by most local education agencies. In the interview below, the researchers discuss recent results and how this information can improve the quality of transition services for students with disabilities.

What is the purpose of your project? What motivated you to conduct this research?

The bulk of existing transition research reflects knowledge about conventional transition services, 

or those services received by students with disabilities in high schools. An alternative approach, called college-based transition services, has been around for over 20 years, providing students with intellectual disability and autism a chance to experience college while continuing to receive support through special education. We wanted to explore and compare these two types of transition experiences and assess the outcomes for students. Using two existing datasets, our project conducted a series of interrelated analyses to look more closely at the transition services students with intellectual disability and/or autism (ID/A) are accessing and the association with youth outcomes in employment. Our hope is that our findings will contribute to the knowledge base on research-based college and career preparation for youth with ID/A.

Could you explain the difference between the two transition approaches (college-based and conventional) you are examining and how each prepares students for post-school life?

“Conventional transition services” is our way of describing the transition services typically provided to youth with disabilities across the United States. These services are documented in the data from the National Longitudinal Transition Study 2012 (NLTS 2012). College-based transition services, also known as dual enrollment or concurrent enrollment, provide students with intellectual disability access to college courses, internships, and employment and other campus activities during their final 2 to 3 years of secondary education. These experiences enable students to participate in career planning with a person-centered planning approach, enroll in college classes for educational and personal enrichment, engage in social activities alongside their college peers, and participate in community-based, paid work experiences that align with their employment goals.

What do the results from your research say about the employment outcomes and other transition outcomes of students with intellectual disability and autism participating in these transition programs?

To be blunt, our findings tell us that conventional transition services are not supporting students with ID/A to become employed after high school. We found a very low prevalence of school-based predictors of post-school success for students receiving conventional transition services. As an example, in our analysis of data from NLTS 2012, we found only 32% of youth with ID/A had paid employment in the previous 12 months. Paid employment in high school is a strong predictor of post-school employment. Additionally, there was low prevalence of other critical transition activities, including self-determination/self-advocacy, self-care/independent living skills, occupational courses, and work-study. Our findings highlight points of stagnation in access to college and career preparation for students with ID/A. Past low engagement rates in college preparation activities may have been attributed to the limited access youth with ID/A have had to positive employment outcomes and poor access to postsecondary education.

On a more promising note, when we look at data on students with ID/A who are enrolled in college-based transition programs, the picture is much brighter. We’ve found moderate to high prevalence of activities reflecting important predictors of post-school success (including­ paid employment while in high school, interagency collaboration, and learning skills in community settings). Students in college-based transition programs are enrolling in courses for college credit and taking courses to help them prepare for careers. These students are leaving K-12 education in a much better position to successfully be employed after high school than many of their peers who are receiving conventional transition services.

Based on what you have learned, what are the implications for practice and policy?

With increased access and opportunities to pursue further education after high school, youth with ID/A need college preparation activities to be a part of their standard education experience. Our findings suggest college-based transition services offer an approach that addresses both employment and college preparation. However, the availability of college-based transition programs depends upon whether school districts have established partnerships with a college or university. Greater availability of college-based transition services would provide the field with a better understanding of the essential elements of practice and associated outcomes of this approach. Our findings also show the need for substantial improvement in the access to college and career preparation for youth with ID/A in conventional transition services. Finally, these studies highlight the need for additional and more robust data in federal data systems reflecting information about the transition experiences of students with intellectual disability, autism, and other developmental disabilities. We need to know what their experiences between age 18-22 look like, how inclusive these experiences are, and what outcomes they achieve after they leave K-12 education.

How can families find more information regarding college-based transition programs in their area?

We are glad you asked! The Think College website has a College Search feature that includes all the college and university programs enrolling students with ID/A in the United States, including those who are working with transitioning youth. This is a great way for families to explore local options. When options don't exist, we encourage families to speak with their school administrators to work on developing partnerships with local colleges or universities. Think College has many resources about college-based transition available on our website. Additionally, our national help desk is always available to answer questions or offer help to those seeking information about inclusive higher education and college-based transition services. Send us questions at thinkcollegeta@gmail.com

Many thanks to Drs. Grigal and Papay for sharing their work with our readers! If you want to learn more about this project, including the results of their research, please visit the following website: https://thinkcollege.net/projects/mtf.

Meg Grigal is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Community Inclusion at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. At the Institute, she is co-director of Think College, a national organization focused on research, policy, and practice in inclusive higher education. Clare Papay is a senior research associate at the Institute for Community Inclusion.

This blog was produced by Shanna Bodenhamer, virtual student federal service intern at IES and graduate student at Texas A&M University, and Akilah Nelson, program officer for NCSER’s Transition to Postsecondary Education, Career, and/or Independent Living program.

Congratulations to Regina (Reggie) Harbourne and her colleagues for receiving the most prestigious award of the American Academy for Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine (AACPDM)—for the second time!—for their NCSER-funded research on the efficacy of the START-Play intervention. The Gayle G. Arnold Award is presented annually to the authors of the best scientific manuscript in the field. Dr. Harbourne and her colleagues received the award in 2019 for their first publication on the initial motor and cognitive outcomes of this study. They recently accepted this award again at the 2022 annual meeting for a follow-up publication on the impacts of the intervention on the important cognitive construct of object permanence.

Sitting Together and Reaching to Play (START-Play) is an intervention designed to target sitting, reaching, and motor-based problem solving in infants with motor delays or disabilities. Physical therapists work in the child’s home with the family on providing intensive, individualized activities to promote these motor skills, building toward goal-directed movements, problem-solving, and learning basic cause-effect relationships based in early motor skills. In this study, the research team conducted a randomized controlled trial with 112 infants aged 7 to 16 months. Those receiving START-Play and those in the control group all continued to receive their usual early intervention services. Children were assessed at various timepoints during the 12-week intervention as well as follow-up visits up to examine maintenance of outcomes.

In their first award-winning manuscript, START-Play Physical Therapy Intervention Impacts Motor and Cognitive Outcomes in Infants With Neuromotor Disorders: A Multisite Randomized Clinical Trial, the authors report on the primary impacts of the intervention. They found that for those infants with more significant motor delay, those who received START-Play had greater improvements in cognition, fine motor skills, and problem-solving (at the 3-month follow up), and greater improvements were maintained for fine motor skills and for reaching at the 12-month follow up when compared to the infants receiving usual care. In addition to the Arnold Award, this manuscript won another prestigious research award from the American Physical Therapy Association, the Chattanooga Award, which recognizes authors who publish work in the association’s journal, Physical Therapy Journal.

The most recent Arnold award was for the research team’s new secondary outcomes manuscript, Early vs. Late Reaching Mastery’s Effect on Object Permanence in Infants with Motor Delays Receiving START-Play and Usual Care Early Intervention.[1] Object permanence is the cognitive construct that allows us to maintain a continual mental representation of an object, an important working memory skill for infants to develop. This manuscript reports that, overall, infants who mastered the motor skill of reaching early showed greater development of object permanence understanding than infants who mastered reaching later. Children who reached early and also received the START-Play intervention continued to improve their object permanence understanding to a greater degree than children receiving usual care. This study extended our understanding of how object permanence relates to developing motor skills, described in the authors’ previous publication, which revealed that object permanence skills improved as sitting skills improved. Together, these two papers show how developing the motor skills of sitting and reaching are important to building cognitive skills and understanding objects in the world.

After accepting the award, Dr. Harbourne answered some questions from NCSER about her team’s research on START-Play.

What was the motivation behind your work on developing and testing the efficacy of START-Play? 

Early intervention services for children with motor delays or dysfunction are often siloed into disciplines by functional areas. For example, educators address cognitive skills and physical therapists address only motor skills. But our study supported the idea that early learning that combines movement with problem solving can advance cognitive skills, problem-solving, and fine motor skills, all areas important to eventual success in school.

What do your results tell us about how the intervention is working and its implications for implementation?  

Because we found that adding problem-solving and cognitive challenges to our motor intervention did not slow progress in motor skills, we believe that integrating motor and cognitive challenges may be better for overall development than separating these areas during service delivery. We also had a strong fidelity of intervention program, assuring that the key ingredients of the intervention were adhered to, and that it was clearly different from usual care. However, one implication is that early interventionists need further training to deliver this type of service to families of children with significant motor delays.

Please tell us about your current and ongoing work on START-Play. How are you moving forward with these positive results?

We are currently examining the data from our long-term follow-up study that we conducted with supplemental funding through NCSER. We are also working on a study, funded through NIH, to look at a dose-matched comparison of START-Play intervention with a formalized version of usual care called MORE-PT for infants with cerebral palsy. In addition, we have developed an online continuing education course that translates our findings from the original START-Play study and will help therapists to implement the key ingredients of START-Play in early intervention. We are excited to work on implementation and hope to gain further understanding of the implementation process as we move forward.

Regina (Reggie) Harbourne is the director of the infant development lab and associate professor of physical therapy in the Rangos School of Health Sciences, Duquesne University. This blog was produced by Amy Sussman, the program officer for NCSER’s Early Intervention and Early Learning program.