Establishing the State of Affairs for Evidence-Based Practices in Students With Severe Disabilities

Abstract

The use of evidence-based practices (EBPs) was mandated with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), and continues with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Accordingly, all children, including those with severe disabilities, must be taught both daily living and academic skills using EBPs. In this article, we synthesize, report, and establish the state of affairs for teaching EBPs to students with severe disabilities; examine established practices and considerations for the future of EBPs; and describe the relevance of the EBP movement to advocacy and intervention research for this population. Leading organizations dedicated to improving the lives of people with severe disabilities must continue to place emphasis on practices and research that have provided empirical demonstrations of effect and standards of proof.Keywords evidence-based practices, severe disabilities, instructional strategies, academic skills, daily living skills Special education began to address evidence-based practice (EBP) with the mandate of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB;, and an emphasis on EBP continues with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA;. The dedication to systematic instruction and behavioral principles has been part of TASH from its inception (Haring & Brown, 1976) and continues as exemplified by volumes like Meyer, Peck, and Brown (1991), and recent text books Brown, McDonnell, & Snell, 2016;Westling, Fox, & Carter, 2015). Current practice and understanding insist that all children, including those with severe disabilities, are taught academic skills, and EBPs are to be used to teach those skills. The field took its lead on EBPs from the discipline of medicine. Sackett, Rosenberg, Gray, Haynes, and Richardson (1996) defined evidence-based medicine as the integration of individual clinical expertise and external clinical evidence from systematic research. Following the lead from medicine, lawmakers integrated statements about EBPs in an effort to produce desired learning outcomes and improve the lives of children with disabilities and their families.National Research Council (2002) suggested that much of the research done in the larger field of education including special education was substandard, and that the inferior nature of this research and its translation into practice was, in part, responsible for the poor educational outcomes of children. Several guiding research-article2017Spooner et al. 9principles were recommended to improve the quality of research and, in turn, affect the current poor state of affairs for education research: (a) pose significant questions that can be answered empirically; (b) link research to relevant theory; (c) use methods that permit direct intervention of the question; (d) provide coherent, explicit chain of reasoning; (e) replicate and generalize across studies; and (f) disclose research to encourage professional scrutiny and critique. Primary emphasis was given to group experimental designs, comprised of control and treatment groups, in which par...

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