From NICHCY: “In education research, many individual studies are conducted on a single intervention with a limited number of students. This yields a wide range of results that make it difficult to see a comprehensive picture of whether or not a particular intervention works. So researchers sometimes conduct what’s called a meta-analysis, where the results of many studies on the same intervention are analyzed together to give a more accurate picture of how effective that intervention is. Researchers have conducted many meta-analyses on special education topics, and the results of these meta-analyses are often of great interest to general and special education teachers alike. Unfortunately, because meta-analyses are usually only available in research journals many educators never get a chance to actually read and use them to inform practice.
That is where NICHCY’s research summaries come in. We synthesize the findings of meta-analyses from numerous journals to bring you information on research-based practices and let you know what interventions are effective. Best of all, NICHCY’s research summaries bring you the most important findings for classroom teachers and provide connections to additional resources. You can link to additional information, tools, and examples of effective practice, in just a few brief pages. No need to slog through research journals to try to find strategies you can use in your classroom; NICHCY has simplified the process for you.
Browse our research summaries in specific topic areas like reading, writing, or math interventions, or browse by disability category. NICHCY offers multiple research summaries on AD/HD, autism spectrum disorders, emotional/behavioral disorders, and learning disabilities (LD). Each summary provides background on the topic of the meta-analysis, information on the purpose of the study, the intervention examined, the children who participated, how effective the intervention was (i.e., the effect size), and the researchers’ conclusions and recommendations for future research. In two cases, we’ve paired the research summary with a companion page of resources for teachers, because we found the results of the meta-analysis so compelling.”
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