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Speaking of Research
New directions in special education research
Bryan G. Cook and Phillip D. Rumrill, Jr.
Kent State University, Department of Educational
Foundations & Special Services, Center for Disability
Studies, 414 White Hall, P.O. Box 5190, Kent, OH
44242-0001, USA
Tel.: +1 330 672 0579; Fax: +1 330 672 2512;
E-mail: bcook@educ.kent.edu
The article examines current and emerging trends in special
education research. The role of scientific inquiry in shap-
ing educational services for children with disabilities is em-
phasized, with a dual focus on (a) topic areas that are most
fertile for future inquiry and (b) the scientific methods that
researchers will use to address those topics.
Keywords: Research, special education, children with dis-
abilities
1. Introduction
As the primary mechanism for providing educational
services to American children with disabilities, the field
of special education stands at the very heart of the
interdisciplinary enterprise known as disability stud-
ies. Perhaps nothing is more important in contempo-
rary society than preparing generations of young peo-
ple for the intellectual, economic, political, and techno-
logical challenges they will confront during their adult
lives. Accordingly, federal laws such as the Individ-
uals with Disabilities Education Act ([9]; previously
known as the Education for All Handicapped Children
Act [5]) and the Americans with Disabilities Act [1]
have spurred and reflected American society’s com-
mitment to ensure that people with disabilities are in-
cluded in public and private educational opportunities
from pre-school to college. As the professionals who
attempt to operationalize the societal goal of equal ed-
ucational opportunities, special educators are responsi-
ble for formulating a cohesive professional knowledge
base grounded in scientific principles to guide the di-
Work 17 (2001) 143–150
ISSN 1051-9815 / $8.00  2001, IOS Press. All rights reserved
143
rection of policy reforms and the implementation of
instructional practices [11].
As a means of evaluating the effects of educational
interventions, shaping and refining the policies affect-
ing people with disabilities in all aspects of life, and set-
ting generally agreed-upon standards for professional
practice – research in its many forms has had a sig-
nificant impact on the profession and practice of spe-
cial education. By setting the priorities for classroom
instructional practices, as well as reacting to exter-
nally determined policies such as legislative mandates
and reforms in general education, special education re-
searchers have built a broad and diverse knowledge base
over the past several decades, drawing upon theories
and models from many other social science fields in the
process. This eclectic blend of topic areas and research
methods has enabled the status of knowledge in spe-
cial education to mirror the interdisciplinary manner
in which services are customarily delivered to children
with disabilities. In that way, practice and research
continue to enrich and be enriched by the respective
knowledge bases of fields such as school psychology,
rehabilitation counseling, medicine, curriculum and in-
struction, educational psychology, instructional tech-
nology, speech and language pathology, physical ther-
apy, occupational therapy, physical education, law, and
educational administration.
The purpose of this article is to examine the interdis-
ciplinary endeavor that is special education research,
with particular emphasis on future trends in scientific
inquiry that stand to guide special educators in meet-
ing the challenge of providing responsive and effective
services to children with disabilities and their families.
To that end, we will begin by exploring topic areas
which we regard as most fertile for continued empirical
investigation. Then, we will discuss selected research
methods that are likely to emerge as researchers ad-
dress key topics in the lives of children, families, and
educators associated with special education in the New
Millenium.
144 B.G. Cook and P.D. Rumrill, Jr. / Special education research
2. Emerging topic areas in special education
research
As we consider content areas within the field of spe-
cial education that require additional research atten-
tion, it is first important to recognize that research find-
ings are often not directly applicable to professional
practice [13]; that is, research rarely tells practitioners
exactly what to do in specific situations. Rather, re-
search contributes to effective practice through the test-
ing, confirmation or disconfirmation, and refinement of
causal explanations – explanations which specify what
variables are related; how they are related; the nature
of the processes that are involved; and the extent to
which variable relationships can be generalized across
populations, settings, and conditions [2,10,11]. Social
scientific theories are used to bring structure and mean-
ing to the relationships observed in empirical research,
both at the outset of a study (in the form of hypotheses)
and in the interpretation of results (to provide a broader
context for specific findings). By applying theory in
special education research, the findings of research in-
vestigations lend support to, are used to refine, or help
to invalidate the theory or model in question. Many
different investigations, then, cumulatively determine a
theory’s validity within a particular knowledge domain.
Theories that have been shown to be valid through em-
pirical research are then used to guide policy making
and instructional practices. Without employing theory,
research studies too easily become isolated, academic
exercises that are difficult to synthesize with other re-
search endeavors to generate a comprehensive perspec-
tive regarding what works (or does not work) and why
it works (or does not work). Therefore, it is essen-
tial that special education scholars develop strong the-
oretical bases for their empirical work. Research, es-
pecially in an applied field such as special education,
can and should be grounded in theory, and we would
like to encourage a movement in special education re-
search whereby theoretical propositions are generated
from conceptual frameworks and results are then used
to refine these frameworks and theories. Over time,
this movement can help to bridge the gap between the
profession’s need for and utilization of new knowledge.
Specific research areas in special education that are
likely to benefit most from application of contempo-
rary social science theories include educational pro-
cesses and outcomes, family issues in the adjustment
to and acceptance of disability, the reciprocal impact
of self-perceptions and the perceptions of others in for-
mulating personal responses to disability, peer accep-
tance and interactions, and other specific interactions
of personal and contextual factors that influence the
success and failures of children with disabilities in all
aspects of education. Moreover, the development and
testing of theory-based educational and psychosocial
interventions have the potential to yield valuable in-
formation for both scholars and practitioners regarding
what facilitates the achievement of valued outcomes
for children with disabilities and why. Perhaps most
fundamentally, the ways in which children with dis-
abilities are identified and categorized help form the
basis for teacher-student relationships and interactions.
As such, systematic, theory-based research should also
evaluate the relative utility of different conceptions of
disability (e.g., minority group model, individual dif-
ference/human variation model, medical model).
2.1. Assistive and medical technology
Another important area for special education and
disability studies scholars in the years to come will
be assistive technology. Special education researchers
need to follow developments in this sector of their field
and systematically study the effectiveness, safety, avail-
ability, practicality, and use patterns of new devices,
as well as student and parental satisfaction with assis-
tive technology strategies. Examples of assistive tech-
nology domains with significant growth potential in-
clude speech-to-print programs for students who are
deaf or hard of hearing, voice recognition software for
children with mobility impairments, voice-output and
large-print screen readers, and mobility aids. We also
look for in-depth inquiries into the interactions between
medical technology and assistive technology; in that
regard, the interface among health care professionals,
special educators, allied health professionals, rehabili-
tation engineers, children with disabilities, parents, and
funding sources will be of paramount interest.
Medical science will continue to have major effects
on special education practice and research. Improved
medical technology has enabled many newborns with
significant disabilities to survive and go to school who
previously may have not. Coupled with improved
childhood detection measures that identify many dis-
abling conditions more quickly than ever before, there
exists a greatly increased need for early intervention
services. Analogously, children with congenital con-
ditions such as spina bifida can now look forward to
adulthood thanks to medical advances that have vastly
extended their life expectancies. This trend has sig-
nificant implications for transition planning and other
 B.G. Cook and P.D. Rumrill, Jr. / Special education research
secondary special education services. Children with
HIV/AIDS are increasingly being viewed as having a
chronic, rather than terminal, disease – a classifica-
tion that brings with it numerous research and service
delivery implications. Children who incur traumatic
brain injuries and spinal cord injuries, too often result-
ing from violence, will rely heavily on cooperation be-
tween professionals in the areas of medical and assistive
technology as they transition into adulthood as people
with severe disabilities. These are only a few examples
of how technology is changing the entire landscape of
special education, but they again underscore the need
for special education research to keep in step with the
implications of medical technology and to explore the
expanded use of assistive technology.
2.2. Transition
The processes and outcomes of several intervention
strategies and professional specialty areas in special
education also need to be examined more rigorously.
Among these is transition from school to adult living
for young people with disabilities – a process that spans
one of the most important developmental periods in
people’s lives. Theoretically driven, applied research
is needed to assist special educators and adult service
providers to collaborate more effectively in planning
and providing comprehensive services to youth with
disabilities who exit schools and enter the world of
work, post-secondary programs, and other adult set-
tings. More long-term follow-up data are needed to
clarify (a) the service needs of transitioning youth with
disabilities and (b) practices which best meet those
needs. One of the most important areas for future
transition research is post-secondary education. With
enrollment rates among students with disabilities hav-
ing more than tripled on American college and univer-
sity campuses since 1978 [7], more emphasis must be
placed on the transition to higher education for these
students – as well as transition from post-secondary
programs to competitive careers and independent liv-
ing.
2.3. Assessment
Another area within the field of special education
that requires more rigorous empirical study is assess-
ment. Informal assessment is a burgeoning topic area
with many new strategies being developed by and for
teachers regarding how to meet the needs of an in-
creasingly diverse body of students in ways that formal,
145
standardized tests cannot (see [16]). Although many
alternative areas of assessment have recently become
popular and are commonly used for students with and
without disabilities, there is often a dearth of research
evidencing the effectiveness, reliability, and validity of
new assessment techniques. For example, authentic as-
sessment, performance-based assessment, and portfo-
lio assessment are frequently used to gauge the progress
of students as well as the effectiveness of curricula and
instruction, yet they may provide unreliable informa-
tion. Additionally, in areas of special education such
as early childhood special education and the education
of students with severe disabilities, a shortage of well-
researched assessment instruments exists. As new in-
struments are developed to assess the skills and apti-
tudes of young children with disabilities and students
with severe disabilities, research will be needed to de-
termine whether the instruments yield reliable and valid
results. Additionally, as planning for students’ transi-
tions from school to work has been initiated at earlier
and earlier ages, research establishing the reliability
and validity of assessments related to the transition and
vocational needs and aptitudes of students in middle
and elementary schools is needed.
Researchers will need to examine the degree to which
students with disabilities are participating in statewide
proficiency tests, what kinds of accommodations they
are being provided, and how results derived from these
tests are being reported. The Individuals with Disabili-
ties Education Act of 1997 mandated that students with
disabilities participate in state proficiency tests. Advo-
cates for children with disabilities fought for this man-
date because proficiency tests are being used as a pri-
mary indicator of the effectiveness of schools, teachers,
and instructional programming. If students with dis-
abilities do not take these tests, as has traditionally been
the case, they are left out of the process for determining
what constitutes quality education. However, because
of their disabilities, many students in special education
cannot meaningfully participate in standard proficiency
tests. Some students with disabilities therefore take the
standard test with one or more accommodation (e.g.,
extended time, having the test read aloud to them), take
an alternate test, or are exempted from part or all of
their state’s proficiency test (see [8]). Further research
is needed regarding how to most meaningfully include
students with disabilities in this process.
Perhaps the most important area of assessment in
which research needs to focus is teachers’ implemen-
tation of reliable and valid informal assessment in
their day-to-day instructional practices. Teachers typ-
146 B.G. Cook and P.D. Rumrill, Jr. / Special education research
ically use assessment only to evaluate student perfor-
mance and assign grades. Yet, assessment is a vital
step in the process of determining what to teach, at
what level to teach, and when to change instructional
strategies. Unfortunately, some teachers base these
critical decisions on casual observations and hunches
about what is best for their students. More research is
needed to determine what kinds of training and supports
are associated with teachers incorporating systematic
and effective informal assessment practices (e.g., er-
ror analysis, criterion-referenced testing, curriculum-
based measurement) into their instructional routines.
2.4. Inclusion
As the inclusion of students with disabilities into
general education classrooms has become a defining
issue in special education, one that has a direct impact
on the quality of education and life for students with
disabilities, research must be conducted to explore how
to make inclusion practices more effective. Although
inclusion is one of the most frequently covered topics
in the professional special education literature, much
of the existing work on this subject does not involve
empirical research at all; rather, it tends to represent
authors’ thoughts and opinions. Additionally, much
of the research that does exist on inclusion is in the
form of case studies that (a) have extremely limited
generalizability and (b) often describe cases that were
purposefully selected to correspond with the authors’
personal perspectives. The aggregate extant literature
on inclusion, therefore, reflects advocacy stances more
than the results of objective research.
One way to improve the relevance of research con-
ducted in the area of inclusion is to focus on student
outcomes. Too often, special education research does
not involve consideration of how children’s academic
and social development is affected by inclusive reforms.
Because the academic performance, behavior, peer ac-
ceptance, social interactions, and self-esteem of stu-
dents with disabilities comprise the focus of special ed-
ucation, these outcomes should be the criteria for re-
search involving inclusion. For example, there is a vast
body of literature investigating the attitudes of teachers
toward the concept of inclusion (see [12], for a sum-
mary of this research). Yet, it has not been conclusively
established that teachers’ attitudes toward the idea of
inclusion are empirically linked to the outcomes of their
included students. Much of this literature, then, begs
the question of whether and how teacher attitudes to-
ward inclusion matter. By using student outcomes as
the dependent variable in studies examining the issue of
inclusion, the persistent problem of producing research
that has little or no implications for practice could be,
at least to some extent, alleviated.
It is also recommended that research on inclusion be
increasingly differentiated by disability level and type.
Because the characteristics and needs of included stu-
dents with disabilities differ so dramatically, research
that does not specify the type and severity of children’s
disabilities may be over-simplistic and fail to reflect the
realities of inclusive education. For example, teachers
may feel quite differently about including students with
severe disabilities as compared to how they feel about
including students with mild disabilities. Yet, attitudi-
nal surveys routinely ask teachers to rate their agree-
ment with a number of statements made about the prac-
tice of including students with disabilities in general.
Analagously, researchers must be careful to specify the
disability categories and other relevant characteristics
of included students participating in their studies. In
this way, readers of the published study know the spe-
cific population to which the results apply – and, just
as importantly, to whom the findings do not apply. For
example, it stands to reason that peers interact with
included students with multiple disabilities differently
than they do with included students with learning dis-
abilities. Therefore, strategies that have been empiri-
cally demonstrated to increase the quality and quantity
of peer interactions for included students with learning
disabilities may not be effective in improving the same
outcomes for students with multiple disabilities.
For pragmatic purposes, research on inclusion that
focuses on school, classroom, and teacher variables
which are relatively easy to manipulate, and there-
fore relatively easy to translate into changes in prac-
tice, needs to be a primary focus. Although student-
related variables are important foci of special educa-
tion research, they may prove less amenable to change.
For example, if it is demonstrated that students with
behavioral disorders are less accepted by their peers
than are included students with mental retardation, ed-
ucators cannot simply change the characteristics or
labels of the students with behavioral disorders as a
means of improving their peer acceptance. Alterna-
tively, if increased teacher training (e.g., number of col-
lege courses taken in the area of special education) is
empirically demonstrated to correspond with improved
outcomes for included students with disabilities, a spe-
cific strategy that educators can implement to improve
inclusive educational outcomes is revealed (i.e., pro-
vide inclusive teachers with more formal training in
special education).
 B.G. Cook and P.D. Rumrill, Jr. / Special education research
Although special education researchers should con-
tinue to expand the important work being done regard-
ing the impact of inclusion on the academic, social,
and affective outcomes of students with disabilities, re-
search gauging the effects of inclusion on others must
also be expanded. Some research has already been
conducted in the area (see [14]), but it is important to
conduct further research to more definitively determine
if inclusion enhances or inhibits the academic progress
of nondisabled students. A related and perhaps equally
important question that can be addressed through em-
pirical investigation is how inclusion affects the atti-
tudes of nondisabled children toward people with dis-
abilities. Researchers should also explore the effect of
inclusion on such outcomes as teacher satisfaction and
teacher burnout. Studies assessing the relation of inclu-
sion to teacher-related outcomes need to consider both
special and general educators, as the roles of special
education teachers are also dramatically altered by the
implementation of inclusion.
Finally, there is currently a dearth of empirical infor-
mation related to the long-term effects of inclusion on
the students whom inclusion is supposed to benefit (i.e.,
students with disabilities). Longitudinal or follow-up
studies, preferably employing experimental or quasi-
experimental designs, need to be performed so that the
relationship between inclusion and future employment,
job retention, salary, attendance and graduation rates at
post-secondary institutions, independent living status,
and size and quality of social networks are clarified.
2.5. Collaboration
Another important area for future special education
research is professional collaboration. Although spe-
cial education teachers have long interacted with a va-
riety of school personnel (e.g., speech therapists, adap-
tive physical educators), the advent of inclusion has re-
quired special and general education teachers to more
regularly and directly work together in the delivery of
services and instruction for students with disabilities.
In an inclusive environment, special and general edu-
cators may teach together for all or part of the school
day, divide the class and teach different groups sepa-
rately for parts of the day, or take turns delivering as-
pects of lessons while the other works with individual
students. Even when special education teachers are not
physically present in inclusive classrooms, they collab-
orate with general education teachers outside of class
regarding the content, structure, and instructional meth-
ods and adaptations to be implemented. Most schol-
147
ars agree that successful collaboration between spe-
cial and general education teachers is a critical element
of service delivery for students with disabilities to at-
tain appropriate outcomes in inclusive classrooms [4].
In spite of this, extremely little is known about what
kinds of personal characteristics, experiences, interac-
tion styles, and supports are associated with successful
collaboration. The literature is replete with anecdotal
stories about successful collaboration between teach-
ers. However, many collaborative efforts are ineffec-
tive and even counter-productive when they involve in-
dividuals who have different instructional approaches
or who simply do not get along [6]. Systematic re-
search is needed to identify variables that contribute
to making collaborative teaching work. This will ele-
vate the status of the term “collaboration” from hopeful
rhetoric to a viable aspect of the professional knowl-
edge base. Researchers should also investigate how
special educators and professionals in vocational reha-
bilitation collaborate successfully. Such collaborative
efforts are particularly problematic given that individ-
uals in the two fields are trained in different disciplines
that have related but different goals, are housed in dif-
ferent physical locations, and adhere to different legal
mandates and ethical standards.
3. Emerging research designs and methods
As special education researchers apply empirical
methods to address those emerging issues discussed to
this point in the article (and many other topics), it is
important to note that the way research is conducted
is likely to change just as dramatically as the topics
under study will. With that in mind, there are a number
of trends that we anticipate in terms of how science is
applied in special education research.
3.1. Using experimental and quasi-experimental
research designs
Perhaps most fundamentally, there is a need to
strengthen the scientific integrity of research designs so
as to better assess the effects of educational interven-
tions for students with disabilities. The most common
ways to assess specific interventions in special educa-
tion appear to be causal comparative and single-subject
studies, both of which present major limitations to the
warrant for new knowledge that is derived from re-
search findings. For example, a researcher wishing to
test a particular way of teaching reading skills to chil-
148 B.G. Cook and P.D. Rumrill, Jr. / Special education research
dren with learning disabilities would likely deliver the
intervention to an intact group of students with learning
disabilities who were placed in one or several class-
rooms. The researcher might compare this group’s ac-
quisition of reading skills with the skill acquisition of
an intact group of students with learning disabilities
who were enrolled in classrooms that did not offer the
new teaching strategy. Although students in the non-
intervention group do provide a frame of reference for
comparison, the researcher does not know, because of
the non-random nature of group assignment, whether
other characteristics of the comparison group might dif-
ferentiate those students’ abilities to develop reading
skills irrespective of the teaching strategy. The internal
validity of this hypothetical study would be compro-
mised because there is no way to know whether differ-
ences in reading skills are attributable to the interven-
tion or to factors related to the educational placement
of participating students.
Another researcher seeking to test a particular class-
room management strategy with children who have be-
havioral disorders might employ a single-subject ap-
proach whereby two or three students are selected and
systematically tracked while various aspects of the in-
tervention are introduced. These investigations are
usually tightly controlled, but the problem of external
validity (i.e., generalizability) presents itself because
there is no way to determine how representative the
two or three students taking part in the study are vis a
vis the broader population of children with behavioral
disorders [11].
Without question, the field of special education needs
more experimental studies in which moderate to large
numbers of participants are drawn from constituent
populations, randomly assigned to treatment and con-
trol groups, and examined before and after particular
interventions have been applied. Although there are in-
herent ethical and practical challenges involved in con-
ducting true experiments in “in vivo” settings such as
the classroom (see [10,11]), the conviction with which
certain teaching, classroom management, and student
planning strategies are claimed to impact the lives of
students with disabilities needs to be strengthened.
3.2. Appropriate use of qualitative research
Current trends in all aspects of educational research
have illuminated the broad applicability of qualitative
research methods. As a means of investigating phe-
nomena that have not been previously examined, iden-
tifying variables for theory-building purposes, and pro-
viding understanding of the lived experiences of stu-
dents with disabilities that is not possible using quan-
titative methods, qualitative research will play a vital
role in expanding special education’s knowledge base.
However, what is sometimes referred to as qualitative
research is little more than personal opinions based
on one’s own experiences as a researcher or teacher.
Within the qualitative realm, we hope to see a move-
ment toward prolonged engagements with research par-
ticipants in their natural environments and the applica-
tion of more rigorous research methods to enhance the
credibility of qualitative findings. The grounded the-
ory method of qualitative research [15] – whereby the-
oretical propositions are developed on the basis of ob-
servation and then tested, revised, and refined through
prolonged engagement and systematic data analysis –
is well suited to contribute to the theoretical foundation
of special education.
3.3. Longitudinal designs
Perhaps the ultimate goal of special education is to
prepare children with disabilities to lead fulfilling and
productive lives after they leave school. However, most
of the research conducted in the field examines the
short-term changes in outcomes (typically over a period
of weeks or a few months) associated with an interven-
tion or the relationships of variables measured while
students are in school. By employing longitudinal re-
search designs which measure variables of interest at
one or more intervals after the initial collection of data
and/or intervention, special education researchers will
be able to examine the long-term effects of services and
policies. Although examples of large scale studies that
employ longitudinal designs and examine the outcomes
of students with disabilities after they leave school ex-
ist (e.g. [3]), a greater number of studies that compare
the post-school outcomes of similar students who have
and have not received interventions are needed. Well-
designed longitudinal studies will help to determine the
long-term effects of policies such as inclusion and tran-
sition, and they are well suited to examine the predic-
tive validity of any intervention or policy that becomes
prominent in the future.
3.4. Multivariate analyses
For special education researchers who use quanti-
tative research methods, we believe that multivariate
analyses which take into account the various levels of
influence that impact the outcomes of students with dis-
 B.G. Cook and P.D. Rumrill, Jr. / Special education research
abilities are necessary. For example, when examining
student outcomes (e.g., academic performance, peer ac-
ceptance, self-esteem), researchers must not only look
at the effects of instructional variables, they must also
realize that variables such as peer group composition,
teachers’ experience and expertise, parental support,
and school culture all have indirect but important effects
on the school experiences and educational opportuni-
ties of students. This is particularly true for students
with disabilities, whose educational outcomes depend
upon specialized supports and services, and whose ex-
periences vary tremendously within and among schools
and classrooms. If the role of these contextualizing
variables in the analysis of student outcomes is ignored,
it is likely that the real effects of instructional variables
will be obfuscated by the unmeasured impact of the
teacher, classroom, school, and community. Analyses
which enable researchers to evaluate the combined ef-
fects of a number of independent variables on a num-
ber of dependent variables such as multivariate analysis
of variance (MANOVA) and canonical correlations are
most sensitive to the intricate inter-relationships among
school-, classroom-, and student-level variables. It is
also important that statistical analyses be sufficiently
sensitive to reflect the “nested” nature of these vari-
ables. In other words, school-level variables (e.g., prin-
cipal support, staff cohesiveness) affect all classrooms
within that school. Variables related to the classroom
(e.g., class size) and teacher (e.g., years of teaching ex-
perience) similarly affect all students clustered within
a particular classroom. Therefore, we also encourage
special education researchers to employ emerging mul-
tivariate methods of analysis such as hierarchical linear
modeling so that the multiple layers of students’ edu-
cational experiences can be more fully and realistically
considered when attempting to explain the educational
outcomes of students with disabilities.
4. Conclusion
In an applied profession such as special education,
leaders shape policy, practice, and scientific inquiry
through an ongoing, reciprocal process of identifying
and answering research questions. Thus, many of the
changes in special education research that we anticipate
stem from changes in disability and educational policy
that have an impact on the profession and practice of
special education. Today’s special educators are sub-
ject to new regulations and policy shifts, increasing le-
gal responsibilities, heightened certification and licen-
149
sure standards, demands to collaborate with other pro-
fessionals, and pressures to function as both generalists
and specialists (to name just a few current trends). The
ever-changing landscape of the field places heavy de-
mands on special educators as they update their knowl-
edge to continue to provide quality services for chil-
dren with disabilities. In the same vein, special ed-
ucation researchers must stay current with respect to
new developments in the field if the contributions that
they make to the knowledge base are to be considered
meaningful by policymakers, administrators, teachers,
parents, and people with disabilities.
We believe that by analyzing the future of research
in special education, rehabilitation professionals will
be afforded an important perspective on their own field
(see [11] for a more detailed and comprehensive dis-
cussion of research in special education). Special ed-
ucation and rehabilitation share much in common, and
many of the recommendations provided and issues ex-
plored in this article apply to both fields. Rehabil-
itation professionals should continue to aprise them-
selves of future trends in special education because the
two fields will be interacting with one another with in-
creased frequency in order to facilitate the transition
from school to adulthood and work. Moreover, special
educators work with children with disabilities before
they become the clients of rehabilitation professionals.
To best understand their clients’ strengths, weaknesses,
and goals, rehabilitation professionals will need to be
familiar with the research knowledge base in special
education.
References
[1] Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. §12101 et
seq.
[2] J. Bellini and P. Rumrill, Research in rehabilitation counsel-
ing, Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, IL, 1999.
[3] J. Blackorby and M. Wagner, Longitudinal postschool out-
comes of youth with disabilities, Exceptional Children 62
(1996), 399–413.
[4] S.F. Cramer, Collaboration: A successful strategy for special
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