Task analysis and scaffolding
Every skill is broken into its component steps and taught in sequence, so a child is never asked to perform a behaviour whose prerequisites they do not yet have.
About Stages Learning
The evidence behind ARIS
What ARIS is built from, what it aligns to, and the evidence tier it holds — stated plainly, on this page, without a form in the way.
What ARIS is built from
ARIS is not a new instructional method. It is a sequenced curriculum assembled from instructional practices with an established evidence base in autism and early-childhood special education — and its contribution is putting them in one coherent sequence, with the materials and the data system attached.
Discrete trial and structured teaching
Lessons specify the instruction, the response, the prompt hierarchy and the reinforcement — so two adults teaching the same lesson teach it the same way.
Prompting and systematic fading
Each lesson names its prompt level and how to fade it, which is what separates a child who has learned a skill from one who is being led through it.
Visual supports
Picture cards, schedules and visual sequences carry the instruction for children whose receptive language is still emerging.
Reinforcement and preference assessment
Pairing and reinforcer assessment come first in the sequence, because instruction with nothing a child wants is not instruction.
Continuous progress monitoring
Data is captured in the moment of teaching rather than reconstructed later, and placement adjusts to it.
What it aligns to
Alignment is not evidence of effect, and we do not present it as such. It is evidence that progress in ARIS is measured in the frameworks your team already answers to, rather than in a scale only we use.
VB-MAPP
Milestones map to lessons, so an assessment your clinicians already run points at what to teach next.
ABLLS-R
Lessons are crosswalked to ABLLS-R codes.
Head Start ELOF
Aligned to the Early Learning Outcomes Framework domains.
State early-learning and ELA standards
Each lesson carries its standard, so progress maps to what the district is accountable for.
The evidence tier we hold
ARIS is positioned at ESSA Level IV — “Demonstrates a Rationale.”
Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, Level IV means a program has a well-defined logic model grounded in rigorous research, and an effort underway to study its effects. That is the tier ARIS holds today. It is the tier a curriculum earns by being built from practices that are themselves well evidenced — and it is not the same as an efficacy study of ARIS itself, which is what Levels I, II and III require.
We state it this way deliberately. A district has a statutory reason to ask which tier a program meets, and a vendor that answers vaguely is a vendor whose answer is weak. Ours is Level IV, we are working toward Level III, and the section below says how.
Districts using ARIS
These are adoptions, and the words below are the educators’ own. They are not outcome studies, and we do not present them as evidence of effect — that is what the research partnerships below are for.
Michigan
Warren Consolidated
“ARIS has led to a massive improvement in Anne May’s classroom. Growth from all of our students. Growth from our educators. Growth from our aides.”
Amanda Abernathy, Special Education Supervisor
Adopted across special education and early-childhood classrooms.
New Jersey
Weehawken Township
A needs-assessment partnership covering Pre-K through 12 special education programs.
With Donna Reichman, Assistant Superintendent
Programme review and planning engagement.
Alabama
Alabaster City Schools
A multi-year, district-wide ARIS adoption across special education programs.
District-wide implementation
Continuing adoption across multiple school years.
The research we are trying to do next
Moving from Level IV to Level III needs a study of ARIS itself, in real classrooms, measured by somebody other than us. We are looking for district and clinic partners to run them.
- ·Materials, training and coaching provided at no cost for the study cohort.
- ·An independent academic partner designs the evaluation.
- ·Measured on the screener or assessment your team already uses — no new testing burden on children.
- ·You keep the right to publish, and we commit in writing not to suppress or delay a null or negative result.
That last commitment is unusual and deliberate. Evidence that only exists when it flatters the vendor is not evidence, and any district that has evaluated edtech knows it.
Common questions
Is ARIS evidence-based?
ARIS is built from established evidence-based instructional practices for autism and early-childhood special education — task analysis and scaffolding, discrete trial and structured teaching, systematic prompting and fading, visual supports, reinforcement and preference assessment, and continuous progress monitoring. Its lessons are crosswalked to VB-MAPP, ABLLS-R, the Head Start ELOF and state early-learning standards. That is a curriculum built on evidence-based practice, which is a different and more modest claim than an efficacy study of ARIS itself — see the evidence tier below.
What ESSA evidence tier does ARIS meet?
ARIS is positioned at ESSA Level IV, 'Demonstrates a Rationale': it has a well-defined logic model based on rigorous research, and an effort underway to study its effects. It does not currently claim Levels I–III, which require experimental, quasi-experimental or correlational studies of the program itself. We would rather state the tier we hold than imply a stronger one.
What research is Stages Learning currently doing?
We are seeking district and clinic partners for evaluation studies designed to move ARIS toward ESSA Level III and above. Partners keep the right to publish, and Stages Learning commits in writing not to suppress or delay a null or negative result.
Which districts use ARIS?
Districts including Warren Consolidated (Michigan), Weehawken Township (New Jersey) and Alabaster City Schools (Alabama) have adopted ARIS across special education and early-childhood programs. Named educators from those districts are quoted on this page.
Want to go deeper, or run a study with us?
We can walk through the full scope and sequence, the standards crosswalks, and what a research partnership would involve in your setting.