ABSTRACT
Educational psychology is a discipline that attends to the factors and processes relevant to and implicated in learning. These factors and processes include motivation, engagement, and achievement—to name a few. It is fair to say that the bulk of educational psychology as a discipline has been focused and based on “mainstream” or “typically” developing learners. Relatively little educational psychology theory, research, measurement, or practice has attended to students with special needs. Because these students experience significant academic difficulties, this limited scholarly attention is a significant gap in educational psychology and also limits the potential for educational psychology to meaningfully contribute to other disciplinary areas that seek to assist students with special needs.
