Collaborative Pathways: Bridging Research and Practice in Special Education

The aim of this symposium is to display and critically reflect on the current development of approaches and methods in specialeducational research, policy and practice. The symposium is also part of two 2.5 credit doctoral courses.

Symposium February 19-20, 2025

This is the third international symposium on Special Education at Umeå University. In order to strengthen researcher-school practitioner collaborative pathways, school-based practitioners are encouraged to resister and attend the first day of this symposium. The second day is research focused and the number of attendees is limited. The symposium is also part of a 2.5 credit doctoral course in special education. The program will be continuously updated, and the registration will open soon.

Background and content for the symposium

In what ways can we strengthen networking, cross-national interdisciplinary exchange and collaboration, close to practice research, and stimulate the dissemination of research in the field of special education? How can we understand the relationship between methods and the articulation of special educational knowledge? The invited speakers from Sweden and other countries will help us articulate the traditions, approaches, conditions and differences between research projects conducted in cooperation between universities and schools.

For the second day of the symposium, we invite research paper submissions relating to collaborative pathways in the field of special education. We welcome contributions focusing on the development of language, writing and reading, mathematics, and research on learning disabilities.

Symposium Program Day 1

Date 19 February
The first day of the symposium will start with coffee. Before lunch, there will be one lecture and in the afternoon there will be three lectures with short breaks between each presentation. We round off the day with a short open discussion picking up on the day’s themes. The day will end with a dinner at Umeå University.

Room: information will follow (Map)

09.30-10.00   Registration and coffee/tea
10.00-10.15   Welcoming introduction
10.15-11.30 Keynote Roger Slee

11.30-12.30   Lunch
12.30-13.45   Keynote Eirini Sanoudaki

13.45-14.00 Coffee/tea break
14.00-15.15 Keynote Veerle Garrels

15.15-15.45 Coffee/tea break
15.45-17.00 Keynote Florian Kiuppis

17.00-17.15 Summing-up session
18.00 Informal mingelbuffé at the Department of Education

Symposium Program Day 2

Date 20 February
The number of participants for the second day of the symposium is severely limited. During the second day of the symposium, there will be a maximum of four parallel seminars that will be thematically or methodologically focused. Contributors will present their paper for about 10 minutes following by a 20-minute discussion of the paper. There will be short breaks between each presentation, and the day will end with a lunch at Umeå University.

Room: information will follow

08.45-09.00 Information
09.00-12.30 Parallel seminars, Coffee/tea break
12.30 Farewell

Keynote

Prof Roger Slee, University of Leeds, UK

Dr Eirini Sanoudaki, Bangor University, UK

BRIEF BIO EIRINI SANOUDAKI

Dr Eirini Sanoudaki is Reader in Linguistics and Bilingualism at Bangor University in Wales. She is Head of the Child Bilingualism Lab, which examines language in monolingual and bilingual speakers, focusing on children with developmental conditions. Eirini pioneered research on language development in neurodiverse Welsh-English bilingual children. She collaborates with the Down's syndrome Association and other external partners on funded projects studying language and cognitive skills in typical and atypical development and she has published extensively in the field. Eirini is passionate about the development of Doctoral researchers: she is currently Director of Postgraduate Research in her academic School, and Lead of the Linguistics and Bilingualism Pathway for the Welsh Graduate School for the Social Sciences. She is also Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. At Bangor, she teaches advanced courses on child language development, language disorders and bilingualism.

ABSTRACT KEYNOTE PRESENTATION

Bilingualism in children with special educational needs

Children with special education needs tend to have fewer opportunities for second language learning due to fears that they would not be able to cope with dual language exposure. Are these fears justified? In this talk I will present recent developments in the field and introduce some of the work of the Child Bilingualism Lab, a body of work examining language in bilingual children with and without developmental conditions. Based in bilingual Wales, an ideal environment in which to investigate the spectrum of bilingualism in relation to the spectrum of neurodiversity, our insights help allay fears about multiple language exposure. By presenting some of the outreach undertaken by Doctoral students in the lab, I also aim to lead us into reflection on how we can effect change in our field.

SUGGESTED ARTICLES

De Valenzuela, J. S., Bird, E. K. R., Parkington, K., Mirenda, P., Cain, K., MacLeod, A. A. N., & Segers, E. (2016). Access to opportunities for bilingualism for individuals with developmental disabilities: Key informant interviews. Journal of Communication Disorders, 63, 32–46. doi:10.1016/j.jcomdis.2016.05.005

Ward, R., & Sanoudaki, E. (2023). Predicting language outcomes in bilingual children with Down syndrome. Child Neuropsychology, 30(5), 760–782. https://doi.org/10.1080/09297049.2023.2275331

DrVeerle Garrels, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway

BRIEF BIO VEERLE GARRELS

Dr. Veerle Garrels is professor in special education at the Department of Vocational Teacher Education at Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet) in Oslo, Norway. At OsloMet, Veerle teaches a postgraduate course in special needs education. She holds a doctoral degree in special education from the University of Oslo and wrote a doctoral thesis on self-determination for students with intellectual disability. Veerle recently concluded a four-year research project on the school-work transitions of youth with intellectual disability, which was funded by the Norwegian Research Council. Current research projects include a self-determination intervention for young adults with intellectual disability and their parents, a NASA Hunch project for students in vocational education, and a collaborative project with the Norwegian police academy and the National Criminal Investigation Service about people with disabilities in the legal system. She is also involved in the development of higher education studies in inclusive education at two universities in Nepal. Before entering academia, Veerle worked for 14 years with children and youth with special needs in school, residential care, and health services.

ABSTRACT KEYNOTE PRESENTATION

What does employment mean for young people with intellectual disability? Is there room for people with intellectual disability in the labour market? And how can we help prepare students with intellectual disability for future employment?

During this keynote presentation, I will present findings from a four-year research project on effective school-work transitions for young adults with intellectual disability. In this project, we used a quantitative survey to explore what 478 Norwegian employers think of hiring employees with intellectual disability and which experiences they have with doing so. Moreover, we explored ten “best case scenarios” in a qualitative case study, in order to identify the characteristics of young people and their context and what made them successful in gaining employment shortly after finishing upper secondary school.