Listen to Lynn Fuchs discuss the benefits of using PALS for reading and math interventions with kindergarten and 1st grade students.
Listen to Doug Fuchs discuss the building blocks necessary to become a capable reader.
“Lynn and Doug are collaborators in work and in life.” – Vanderbilt Magazine
Together Lynn and Doug have received numerous accolades.
- The Distinguished Contributions to Research Award from The American Educational Research Association in 2014
- The Kauffman-Hallahan-Pullen Distinguished Researcher Award from The Council for Exceptional Children in 2013
- The Fuchs were described as two of 14 “revolutionary educators” by Forbes Magazine in 2009
- “100 Distinguished Alumni” distinction from The University of Minnesota in 2008
- The Jeannette E. Fleischner Award and the Samuel A. Kirk Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Field of Learning Disabilities From The Council for Exceptional Children in 2008
- The Earl Sutherland Prize for Achievement in Research from Vanderbilt University in 2005
- The Palmer O. Johnson Memorial Award from the American Educational Research Association in 1998
Participation in the Field of Social Sciences:
- Senior Advisors to The National Center on Intensive Intervention
- Research Team Members at The Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction, and Learning
- Co-Directors of The National Center for Leadership in Intensive Intervention
- Members of The Vanderbilt-Kennedy Center
The Drs. Fuchs have been called “visionary researchers” as they have attracted more federal funding than any other researchers in their field. While at Vanderbilt University, they have been the principle investigators of more than 50 federally-sponsored research grants.
Their work is funded by research grants from the NIH’s National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES).
Training grant and research grant funds associated with these federal research projects provide doctoral and master’s students with tuition support and stipends. They provide doctoral students with opportunities to learn the methods for conducting high quality studies in the public schools to evaluate state-of-the-art intervention methods the research team develops. Their projects also provide master’s students the chance to learn the skills necessary for understanding how school-based research operates and for appreciating how such research can have a major positive impact on the teachers and students who are involved and can improve education practice across the country and world.
These research grants have facilitated development of models of service delivery (e.g., pre-referral intervention, responsiveness-to-intervention, reintegrating students with disabilities into mainstream classrooms); assessments (e.g., formative measures of student and teacher evaluation, dynamic assessment); and instructional approaches (e.g., peer-mediated learning strategies).
Lynn Fuchs, Ph.D.
The Dunn Family Professor of Psycho-educational Assessment, Special Education, and Human Development at Vanderbilt University. She has conducted programmatic research on assessment methods for enhancing instructional planning and on instructional methods for improving reading and math outcomes for students with learning disabilities and on the cognitive and linguistic student characteristics associated with mathematics development and responsiveness to intervention. She sits on the editorial boards of 10 journals including the Journal of Educational Psychology, Scientific Study of Reading, Reading Research Quarterly, Elementary School Journal, Journal of Learning Disabilities, and Exceptional Children. Lynn was a member of the presidential delegation to the Special Olympics World Summer Games in Shanghai, China in 2007 and received the Distinguished Researcher Award from the American Educational Research Association in 2005.
“I became interested in learning disabilities while teaching first grade in Pennsylvania. There were always one or two students each year who had substantial difficulty learning to read and do math, although they performed nicely in other areas. Today we say these children have a learning disability.” – Lynn Fuchs
Douglas Fuchs, Ph.D.
Professor and Nicholas Hobbs Chair in Special Education and Human Development and a Professor of Pediatrics at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Before joining the Vanderbilt faculty in 1985, Doug was an assistant first-grade teacher in a private school in Baltimore for children with severe behavior problems; a fourth-grade classroom teacher in a public school outside Philadelphia; and a school psychologist in the Minneapolis Public Schools. He has won several best paper awards including the Division 16 Fellow’s Award from the American Psychological Association and Best Paper of the Year Award from the National Association of School Psychologists. Doug received the James M. Kauffman Award in Special Education from the University of Virginia in 2008. Doug is currently exploring the importance of “hybrid” cognitively-focused and skills-based academic interventions for the most difficult-to-reach children.
He is particularly proud of the accomplishments of his graduate students. In 2009, 2010, and 2011, Stephanie Al Otaiba, Kristen McMaster, and Paul Morgan each were winners of the Council for Exceptional Children’s Early Career Research Award. In 2013, Chris Lemons won the Council for Exceptional Children’s Early Career Publication Award (co-sponsored by the Council’s Division of Research).