Vermont Special Education Rules
(Revised: 2013)
(31) Related services. Relates services means developmental, corrective, and other supportive
services as are required to assist a student with a disability and includes speech-language
pathology, audiology services, interpreting services, psychological services, physical therapy,
occupational therapy, counseling services, including rehabilitation counseling services,
orientation, transportation and mobility services, medical services as defined in this section,
parent counseling and training, school health services, school nurse services, school social work,
assistive technology services, appropriate access to recreation, including therapeutic recreation,
other appropriate developmental or corrective support services, and other appropriate support
services and includes the early identification and assessment of disabling conditions in students
as described in Rule 2360.2.16.
(32) Scientifically based research. Scientifically based research means research that involves the
application of rigorous, systematic, and objective procedures to obtain reliable and valid
knowledge relevant to education activities and programs; and includes research that:
(a) Employs systematic, empirical methods that draw on observation or experiment;
(b) Involves rigorous data analyses that are adequate to test the stated hypotheses and justify
the general conclusions drawn;
(c) Relies on measurements or observational methods that provide reliable and valid data
across evaluators and observers, across multiple measurements and observations, and
across studies by the same or different investigators;
(d) Is evaluated using experimental or quasi-experimental designs in which individuals,
entities, programs, or activities are assigned to different conditions and with appropriate
controls to evaluate the effects of the condition of interest, with a preference for random-
assignment experiments, or other designs to the extent that those designs contain within-
condition or across-condition controls;
(e) Ensures that experimental studies are presented in sufficient detail and clarity to allow for
replication or, at a minimum, offer the opportunity to build systematically on their findings;
and
(f) Has been accepted by a peer-reviewed journal or approved by a panel of independent
experts through a comparably rigorous, objective, and scientific review.