Research Briefs — Mechanism Analyses for U.S. Special Education
Short, citation-dense briefs that work backward from a measurable failure mode in special-education policy or practice — due-process litigation cost, Indicator 13 stagnation, AAC device abandonment, the 85 % learning-success rule — to the smallest set of field-level signals that explain it. Every brief is written from peer-reviewed research, federal regulation, and primary case law, and is dated and attributed.
Curated by Davit Janunts, M.Ed. Special Education (Lehigh University — Fulbright Foreign Student Program); peer-reviewed co-author in Exceptional Children (Morin, Janunts, et al. 2024, 90(2):145-163, doi:10.1177/00144029231165506).
- 2026-04-18
FAPE Risk Signals in IEP Data
A mechanism analysis of due-process cost drivers — and the structured signals that precede most filings.
- 2026-04-18
Indicator 13 at the National Stagnation Rate
Why federal transition-planning compliance has not moved in a decade — and the four field-level checks that close the gap.
- 2026-04-19
Zero-PII Architecture for Special-Education Software
The post-COPPA-2025 trust surface, and the three architectural commitments — UUID-only IDs, device-local inference, PII-stripping — that close it. AI/LLM calls are the focal example.
- 2026-04-19
Substitution Limits — Why Paper Cannot Replace Screen-Based Assistive Technology
The Sweden/Denmark return-to-books trend does not carve out disability. For SPED, IDEA AT mandate and AAC-as-voice make screen access a federal civil-rights matter.
- 2026-04-19
AAC Abandonment and Motor-Planning Consistency
Why 50–90 % of AAC devices are abandoned within the first year — and the three predictable causes (motor-plan disruption, partner-training gap, vocabulary mismatch) that account for most cases.
- 2026-04-19
The 85 % Rule, Not Gamification
Wilson et al. (2019, Nature Communications) established the optimal-difficulty band that drives learning. Gamification is a different lever — and one that often actively harms students with disabilities.