Within professional circles, conversations about educational services and supports for students with disabilities increasingly reference the extent to which compelling research support exists for particular educational practices. Although individual studies certainly provide important insights into the delivery and impact of educational practices, it is the accumulation of research findings across multiple studies through which evidence-based strategies are established. Systematic literature reviews play a vital role in informing practitioners about whether and how a particular practice affects particular outcomes for students with disabilities. Moreover, such analyses can be instrumental in identifying critical gaps in the research literature and the need for methodological innovations. This special issue represents a collection of seven systematic literature reviews addressing a range of important issues in the education of students with disabilities and students at risk for school failure. In the first review, Yeo reports findings from a meta-analysis of 27 studies addressing curriculum-based measurement and statewide achievement tests. Findings suggest that curriculum-based measures may be valid for predicting performance on statewide reading tests. However, this association appears to be moderated by several factors. In the second review, Berkeley, Scruggs, and Mastropieri report on their analysis of 40 studies focused on improving the reading comprehension of students with learning disabilities. Collectively, findings from these studies reaffirm the effectiveness of an array of intervention strategies for improving student performance on both criterion- and normreferenced measures. The third and fourth reviews focus on the efficacy of interventions for secondary-age students with disabilities. Scruggs, Mastropieri, Berkeley, and Graetz synthesize findings from 70 intervention studies focused on improving outcomes for middle and high school students with disabilities within the content areas of English, science, and social studies. In this meta-analysis, the authors identify a number of intervention approaches—including explicit instruction, mnemonic instruction, peer instruction, and computer-assisted instruction—associated with moderate to large effect sizes. Okilwa and Shelby examine the effectiveness of peer tutoring interventions on the academic outcomes of youth with disabilities. Findings from these 12 studies highlight the efficacy of this educational practice across a range of students, settings, and academic measures. In the fifth review, the focus shifts to the other end of the educational spectrum. Namely, Maag and Katsiyannis focus their review on an appraisal of the research support available for four early intervention programs designed for children with or at risk for antisocial behavior. In their analysis, they address the different levels of evidence for the efficacy of each program and raise several critical issues associated with the evaluation of early intervention efforts. In the sixth review, Hart and Banda review 13 single-case intervention studies examining the impact of the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) on the functional communication of students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Although the PECS approach was considered moderately to highly effective for some communication outcomes, the authors identify several key areas in which additional research is needed to strengthen the evidence base. In the final article, Lindo and Elleman review the literature on reading interventions to ascertain the extent to which the views of teachers and students were solicited in these studies. The authors find that the perspectives of these stakeholders were infrequently sought. This is an interesting review, given that concerns about the research to practice gap often revolve around issues of social validity These seven literature reviews reflect a range of approaches for identifying, coding, interpreting, and evaluating a particular segment of the research literature. We hope this special issue will provide valuable insights into the impact of a variety of educational interventions. Moreover, we anticipate the articles will prompt further discussion of how best to synthesize the rapidly expanding special education research base. 386556
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