Douglas Fuchs

Professor of Special Education and Nicholas Hobbs Chair of Special Education and Human Development and Professor Pediatrics in the Vanderbilt University Medical School Vanderbilt University

  • Nashville TN

Special education expert on interventions for children with learning disabilities and behavior disorders.

Contact

Vanderbilt University

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Multimedia

Biography

Before joining the Vanderbilt faculty in 1985, Doug Fuchs was an assistant first-grade teacher in a private school in Baltimore for children with severe behavior problems. He also was a fourth-grade classroom teacher in a public school outside Philadelphia and a school psychologist in the Minneapolis Public Schools. At Vanderbilt, he has been principal investigator of 50 federally-sponsored research grants. They have facilitated development of models of service delivery, assessments and instructional approaches. He is currently exploring the importance of “hybrid” cognitively-focused and skills-based academic interventions for most difficult-to-teach children.

Areas of Expertise

Classroom Management
Learning Disabilities and Behaviour
Response to Intervention
Reading Comprehension
Urban Education
Classroom Assessment
Instruction of Students at Risk for School Failure because of Disability or Poverty
Inclusive Classrooms
Reading and Math Learning Disorders
Interventions
Peer-Mediated Learning
School Improvement and School Reform
Special Education Policy
Special Education
Learning Disabilities
Learning Disorders

Accomplishments

Learning Disabilities Association of American, Lifetime Achievement Award

2018

Identified by Thomson Reuters as among the most highly cited in the social sciences

2018

International Literacy Association’s (formerly, International Reading Association’s) Albert J. Harris Research Award

2015

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Education

University of Minnesota

Ph.D.

Educational Psychology

1978

University of Pennsylvania

M.S.

Elementary Education

1973

John Hopkins University

B.A.

Major Psychology

1972

Affiliations

  • National Center for Leadership in Intensive Intervention

Selected Media Appearances

How Teacher Shortages Affect Students With Disabilities

Nashville Scene  online

2024-01-30

Vanderbilt University professor Douglas Fuchs researches special education. He was a co-lead author on a 2018 study finding that students with disabilities are, on average, more than three years behind their peers.

“There are too few special educators with appropriate licensure or certification,” Fuchs tells the Scene. “So schools have no recourse but to hire others who are not nearly adequately trained.”

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MTSS: What Is a Multi-Tiered System of Supports?

Education Week  online

2023-10-13

In addition to testing a student on an IQ test or an achievement test, to see if they had learning disabilities, RTI encouraged educators to try to teach that child in a more intensive way and monitor their response to that, according to Doug Fuchs, the Nicholas Hobbs Chair of Special Education and Human Development at Vanderbilt University. And if the response was strong, that was an argument that the student should not be identified for an individualized education program, or IEP.

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3 Reasons Why More Students Are in Special Education

Education Week  online

2023-10-10

“General education has become less, not more, capable of accommodating the needs of a lot of kids,” said Doug Fuchs, a research professor in the special education and psychology departments at Vanderbilt University.

“And I think that more and more parents and advocates are realizing that the general classroom … just cannot stretch itself to legitimately meet the needs of kids.”

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Selected Articles

Cognitive Correlates of the Covariance in Reading and Arithmetic Fluency: Importance of Serial Retrieval Fluency

Child Development

Tuire Koponen, Kenneth Eklund, Riikka Heikkilä, Jonna Salminen, Lynn Fuchs, Douglas Fuchs, Mikko Aro

2019

This study examines the core predictors of the covariance in reading and arithmetic fluency and the domain‐general cognitive skills that explain the core predictors and covariance. Seven‐year‐old Finnish children (N = 200) were assessed on rapid automatized naming (RAN), phonological awareness, letter knowledge, verbal counting, number writing, number comparison, memory skills, and processing and articulation speed in the spring of Grade 1 and on reading and arithmetic fluency in the fall of Grade 2.

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Embedding Self-Regulation Instruction Within Fractions Intervention for Third Graders With Mathematics Difficulties

Journal of Learning Disabilities

Amber Y Wang, Lynn S Fuchs, Douglas Fuchs, Jennifer K Gilbert, Sarah Krowka, Rebecca Abramson

2019

The purpose of this study was to explore the efficacy of fractions intervention with and without an embedded self-regulation (SR) component for third-grade students at risk for mathematics disabilities. Fractions intervention focused on magnitude understanding and word problems.

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Connections Between Reading Comprehension and Word‐Problem Solving via Oral Language Comprehension: Implications for Comorbid Learning Disabilities

New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development

Lynn S Fuchs, Douglas Fuchs, Pamela M Seethaler, Laurie E Cutting, Jeannette Mancilla‐Martinez

2019

In this article, we discuss the approach adopted within the Vanderbilt University Learning Disabilities Innovation Hub, which focuses on students with higher‐order comorbidity: students with concurrent difficulty with reading comprehension and word‐problem solving.

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