To Buy or Not to Buy: Understanding How Special Educators Make Decisions as Consumers of Intervention Materials for Children with Disabilities

Dr. Lesley Sylvan, Ed.D.
Erica Goldstein
Dina Hafez

Montclair State University

Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) play a pivotal role in K-12 public schools supporting students with a wide variety of needs. Like other educators, they face a vast  array of choices for teaching material ranging from $1 downloadable worksheets to scripted curriculum that cost over $200 from educational publishing companies. The purpose of this study was to examine how SLPs working with school-aged children make decisions when purchasing educational materials. It involved a national survey completed by 115 participants. Understanding how these professionals make decisions in an environment influenced by profit and marketing provides insight into how educators more broadly function as critical consumers. This study found that issues like price, convenience, and time-saving are major drivers of purchasing decisions and that SLPs value flexible products that align with students’ goals. This study also found that word-of-mouth recommendations, marketing materials, and conferences were prominent sources
of information about educational products.

Keywords: special education, intervention materials, packaged programs

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