In 2022, the Department of Special Education at Stockholm University and the Department of Counseling, Higher Education and Special Education at University of Maryland at College Park, initiated a new international partnership in the frames of the Initiation Grants Programme funded by the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation for Research and Higher Education (STINT). As part of the programme’s activities – researcher/teacher exchange – two researchers in the field of special education are visiting our department on 15-19 April 2024.

Warm welcome from Jenny Wilder, Lise Roll, Rano Zakirova Engstrand (research project investigator and coordinator) and research group “Participation and Learning”

Gulnoza Yakubova, PhD, is an Associate Professor in Special Education in the College of Education at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her research interests include autism, technology, functional living skills, mathematics, and parent-implemented and culturally adapted interventions. In her current scholarship, she examines the use of individualized video-based interventions to help autistic children improve mathematics learning with the ultimate goal of promoting inclusion in school and society.

Monerah Al-Dubayan, MS, is a PhD candidate in the Special Education program at the University of Maryland. Her research interests include autism spectrum disorder, communication, challenging behavior, parent-implemented and culturally adapted interventions, and applied behavior analysis. Through her research, she hopes to empower and involve families in interventions to improve communication and understanding, while striving to support children with disabilities and their families reach their full potential.