Research

Interdisciplinary Research

A diverse group of researchers are affiliated with the Center for Autism Research and Education including faculty from Economics, Education, Music, Nursing, and Psychology. Our priorities include:

Incorporating the voices of autistic individuals in the work we do, particularly through our Consultants group where autistic adults advise on all aspects of our research projects.
Partnering with members of our Affiliates group, which includes autistic adults, family members and professionals in the field, to ensure our work aligns with their needs.
Prioritizing research that reduces disparities among underserved populations.
Working with service providers in our local communities to support autistic individuals and their families.

Caregiver Experiences with Special Education in Massachusetts: Evidence of Broken Promises?

John W. McKenna, Meghan Burke, Hsien-Yuan Hsu, Ashleigh Hillier, and Joseph Veneziano.

Read the working paper: Parent/Guardian Experiences with Special Education in Massachusetts.

Introduction

Research suggests that schools experience significant challenges providing a free appropriate public education to students with disabilities. There are also power imbalances that impact the quality of home-school partnerships in special education. In Massachusetts there are concerns that many children who receive special education services are not provided an appropriate education and that the state has not provided appropriate oversight of school practice. These concerns are now being investigated by the federal government.

An electronic survey was developed and distributed to obtain information on the quality of special education home-school partnerships, caregiver advocacy, experiences with dispute resolution procedures, and satisfaction with services. 173 Massachusetts caregivers of children with an Individualized Education Program (IEP) completed at least a part of the survey, with 110 completing the entire survey. The participant sample was primarily white, female, and had higher levels of home income.

Caregivers tended to report concerns with the skills of IEP team members, schools not treating them as equal partners, and the degree to which schools provided their child an appropriate education.
Although few caregivers reported participating in IEP dispute resolution, those that did tended to report low levels of satisfaction.
Few caregivers reported higher levels of IEP service satisfaction. Services of concern included reading, writing, mathematics, and behavior/self-regulation. 45% of survey completers reported having at least one service request rejected.
Caregivers with higher levels of education and a child who received services for more than one disability had higher levels of advocacy behavior.
Higher levels of service satisfaction was associated with stronger home-school partnerships.
Student grade and educational setting did not predict caregiver advocacy, home-school partnerships, or service satisfaction.

Teacher preparation and training should emphasize special education mandates, specialized instructional methods and supports, and research-based practices that align with professional responsibilities.
Educators should be appropriately supported and have manageable workloads so that they can effectively utilize their knowledge and skill.
Ongoing progress monitoring is needed to identify schools in need of technical assistance and to monitor and support implementation of action plans.
Alternative measures of school quality should disaggregate data for students with disabilities and include special education specific indicators such as caregiver service satisfaction and special education experiences.

Interdisciplinary Research

Caregiver Experiences with Special Education in Massachusetts: Evidence of Broken Promises?

Introduction

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