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, UNITED STATES
Special education expert on interventions for children with learning disabilities and behavior disorders.
Multimedia
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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 (16)
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 (5)
Learning Disabilities Association of American, Lifetime Achievement Award (professional)
2018
Identified by Thomson Reuters as among the most highly cited in the social sciences (professional)
2018
International Literacy Association’s (formerly, International Reading Association’s) Albert J. Harris Research Award (professional)
2015
Distinguished Contributions to Research in Education Award, American Educational Research Association (professional)
2014
Kauffman-Hallahan Distinguished Researcher Award, presented by the Division of Research of The Council for Exceptional Children and Routledge Press (professional)
2013
Education (3)
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 (1)
- National Center for Leadership in Intensive Intervention
Links (2)
Selected Media Appearances (5)
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.”
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.
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.”
It’s time to stop debating how to teach kids to read and follow the evidence
Science News online
2020-04-26
England, too, started seeing dramatic results after government-funded schools were required in 2006 to teach systematic phonics to 5- to 7-year-olds. When the country implemented a test to assess phonics skills in 2012, 58 percent of 5- and 6-year-olds passed. By 2016, 81 percent of students passed. Reading comprehension at age 7 has risen, and gains seem to persist at age 11. These population trends make a strong case for teaching phonics, says Douglas Fuchs, an educational psychologist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
School Closures Due to Coronavirus Could Widen Education Inequality Among Students
Newsweek online
2020-03-25
Any amount of time out of the classroom can be detrimental to students' learning, especially for those who are already disadvantaged. When in-person classes resume, a student who is two grade levels behind their typically developing peers will be "much worse off" than their classmates who are on or above grade level, Doug Fuchs, a professor of special education at the Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, told Newsweek. "A lot of these underperforming students are underperforming partly because many schools are incapable of providing them with the intensity of instruction that they really need," Fuchs said. "Many of them are getting something, not enough but something, and taking them out of school now reduces that instruction and attention to virtually nothing."
Selected Articles (3)
Cognitive Correlates of the Covariance in Reading and Arithmetic Fluency: Importance of Serial Retrieval Fluency
Child DevelopmentTuire 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.
Embedding Self-Regulation Instruction Within Fractions Intervention for Third Graders With Mathematics Difficulties
Journal of Learning DisabilitiesAmber 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.
Connections Between Reading Comprehension and Word‐Problem Solving via Oral Language Comprehension: Implications for Comorbid Learning Disabilities
New Directions for Child and Adolescent DevelopmentLynn 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.
