Seven Things You May Hear About Special Education, and What the Sources Say

Some of what you will hear about special education is true, some is a brand name doing the talking, and a few things are dangerous. Here are seven, with what the primary sources say. Every claim below has its source linked at the bottom.

Nobody who believed one of these was foolish. Each one gets said by someone who sounds sure.

1. "Orton-Gillingham is the proven program for dyslexia."

A 2021 meta-analysis of 16 studies found that Orton-Gillingham reading interventions "do not statistically significantly improve foundational skill outcomes" (effect size 0.22, p = .40). The authors read the positive average as a sign of promise, not a reason for confidence.

Separate evidence supports a different claim. A 2023 systematic review and meta-analysis of 53 studies found that reading interventions with instruction in foundational skills, meaning phonemic awareness, phonics and decoding, had a significant positive effect for elementary students with or at risk for dyslexia, with an average effect size of 0.33.

What to ask: not "is it Orton-Gillingham?" but "what exactly will be taught, how often, by whom, and how will we measure whether it is working?"

2. "Inclusion is better," or "special classes are better," and the research has settled it.

A 2022 Campbell Collaboration review of 15 studies from nine countries found that, in general, inclusion neither increased nor decreased learning and psychosocial adjustment for children with special educational needs. The lead author's summary: "one size doesn't fit all and not all special needs children benefit from inclusive education."

That does not make inclusion a bad idea, and it does not make a separate class a good one. It means a claim that research proves either one raises results goes further than the research does. The review's authors point to assessing the individual child's needs, so the honest answer is that it depends on the child and on what the setting actually delivers.

3. "Facilitated communication lets a child who cannot speak type their own words."

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association's position is that facilitated communication is a discredited technique that should not be used. It reports no scientific evidence supporting its validity, and considerable evidence that the messages are authored by the facilitator, not the person with the disability. ASHA also records evidence of harm, because the messages reflect the facilitator's voice, not the child's.

Parents reach for this because they want their child's voice. The controlled tests are the thing that protects that voice from being replaced by someone else's. If your child needs a way to communicate, ask for an evaluation by a speech-language pathologist for augmentative and alternative communication (AAC).

4. "Miracle Mineral Solution treats autism."

The US Food and Drug Administration has not approved Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS). FDA says products like it continue to be promoted on social media to treat autism, cancer, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis and flu, and that once mixed the solution turns into a dangerous bleach that has caused serious and potentially fatal side effects.

Do not give it to a child. If someone is selling it to treat your child, the person selling it is the problem.

5. "Restraint and seclusion are rare and fall on every student alike."

In the Office for Civil Rights' 2011-12 data, students with disabilities served under IDEA were 12 percent of students but 58 percent of those placed in seclusion or involuntary confinement and 75 percent of those physically restrained. In the 2017-18 data, 13 percent of enrolled students were students with disabilities, yet 78 percent of the 101,990 students restrained or secluded, and 77 percent of those secluded, were students with disabilities. OCR notes the collection is self-reported by districts.

If your child has been restrained or secluded, ask in writing for the incident report and the school's policy the same day. In Alberta, the provincial standards are in Ministerial Order 42/2019; the guide on what to do when the plan is not being followed covers them.

6. "A part-time job will get in the way of the plan."

For students with disabilities, paid work during high school is one of the in-school experiences that research links with better outcomes later. NTACT:C rates paid employment or work experience "research-based" for both employment and education after high school. Career technical education is the only predictor it rates "evidence-based" for employment. These are correlational findings, not proof that a job causes later work. The transition planning guide has the details and the questions to bring to the meeting.

7. "What they promised in the meeting will happen."

Courts look at the written offer. In Union School District v. Smith (1994), the Ninth Circuit wrote that a formal, written offer "creates a clear record" of what was offered, and that the requirement "should be enforced rigorously." That is one federal appeals court, not every court. The practical point holds anywhere: a promise that never reaches the page is hard to prove. The guide on getting it in writing has the sentence and the letter.

What this page leaves out

Claims we could not check against a primary source this month are not on this page.

Sources

Checked October 2026.

• Current State of the Evidence: Examining the Effects of Orton-Gillingham Reading Interventions for Students With or at Risk for Word-Level Reading Disabilities (Stevens et al., 2021, Exceptional Children, via PubMed Central): 16 studies, effect size 0.22, p = .40.
• Forty Years of Reading Intervention Research for Elementary Students with or at Risk for Dyslexia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (Hall et al., 2023, Reading Research Quarterly): 53 studies, average effect size 0.33 for interventions with foundational-skills instruction.
• The effects of inclusion on academic achievement, socioemotional development and wellbeing of children with special educational needs (Dalgaard et al., 2022, Campbell Systematic Reviews): 15 studies from nine countries.
• Facilitated Communication (Position Statement) (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association): the position, the authorship evidence and the harms.
• La FDA met les consommateurs en garde contre les effets secondaires dangereux et potentiellement mortels de la solution minérale Miracle (US Food and Drug Administration, August 12, 2019, in French): not approved, promoted for autism, becomes a dangerous bleach.
• Civil Rights Data Collection, Data Snapshot: School Discipline, Issue Brief No. 1 (US Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, March 2014): the 2011-12 restraint and seclusion shares.
• 2017-18 Civil Rights Data Collection: The Use of Restraint and Seclusion on Children with Disabilities in K-12 Schools (US Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, October 2020): the 2017-18 shares, and the note that the data are self-reported.
• Predictors of Post-School Success (NTACT:C): the evidence tier for paid employment and for career technical education.
• Union School District v. Smith, 15 F.3d 1519 (9th Cir. 1994) (opinion text, Public.Resource.Org): the written-offer passage.

This page summarizes sources in plain language. It is not medical, educational or legal advice. A study describes groups of children, not yours.