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Prof. Matthias Grünke, Ph.D.

Full Professor and Chair

Matthias Grünke

Department of Special Education and Rehabilitation, Klosterstraße 79b (Room 334), 50931 Cologne, Germany
Phone: +49 221 470-5547
E-mail: matthias.gruenke@uni-koeln.de
ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4249-6035
Contact card (vCard)

Profile

Matthias Grünke is Full Professor of Special Education at the University of Cologne and holds the Chair of Developing and Evaluating School-Based Interventions for Students with Learning Disabilities. Before joining Cologne, he was a full professor at the University of Oldenburg and an interim professor at the University of Leipzig. For six years, he also served as a visiting professor at the University of Sunderland (UK).

He studied psychology at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and earned his doctorate (summa cum laude) and his habilitation in special education at the University of Cologne. He is also a trained Montessori educator, behaviour therapist and client-centred counsellor.

Research interests

  • Developing and evaluating interventions for children and adolescents with learning difficulties, particularly in reading, writing and mathematics
  • Learning strategies and memory techniques, such as self-questioning in reading or mnemonic methods in mathematics
  • Supporting multilingual learners and learners with co-occurring behavioural difficulties
  • Methodology of single-case experimental designs and their meta-analytic synthesis

Matthias Grünke has published more than 200 scholarly articles and books. He has led numerous externally funded research projects supported by public and private funders, including one with a budget of more than one million euros, and has served as a reviewer for the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and other institutions.

Editorships

He also serves on the editorial boards of journals including Behavioral Disorders, British Journal of Learning Disabilities, Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Psicothema, Reading & Writing Quarterly and Single-Case in the Social Sciences.

Appointments and networks

Awards

  • 2023: Jenny Gusyk Prize of the University of Cologne in the category “Family-Conscious Leadership & Management”
  • 2010: Badge of Honour of Beni Suef University (Egypt) for his contributions to special education and to scientific cooperation between Egypt and Germany

Selected recent publications

  • Barwasser, A., Spilles, M., Vilz, D., Grünke, M., & Casale, G. (2026). A word reading intervention with and without the Good Behavior Game on reading and behavior of second-language learners with co-occurring reading and behavioral difficulties. Exceptional Children. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/00144029261489709
  • Grünke, M., Braunwarth, I., Connelly, V., & Barwasser, A. (2025). The effects of the pegword method on the multiplication skills of students with math difficulties. Education and Treatment of Children, 48(1), 55–65. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43494-024-00146-9
  • Grünke, M., Hoff, S., Barwasser, A., & Duchaine, E. (2025). The role of prompt fading in teaching self-questioning for improved text comprehension: Evidence from a single-case study. International Journal of Special Education, 40(2), 37–50. https://doi.org/10.52291/ijse.2025.40.20
  • Lauth, G. W., Grünke, M., & Brunstein, J. C. (Eds.). (2025). Interventionen bei Lernstörungen: Förderung, Training und Therapie in der Praxis (3rd rev. ed.). Hogrefe.
  • Urton, K., Moeyaert, M., Nobel, K., Barwasser, A., Boon, R. T., & Grünke, M. (2025). Effects of graphic organizers on outcomes for students with disabilities: Three-level meta-analysis of single-case studies. Exceptionality, 33(1), 17–39. https://doi.org/10.1080/09362835.2024.2389080
  • Barwasser, A., Schulze, S., Gieseler, C., & Grünke, M. (2024). Effects of a math single-case intervention on word problem-solving in students with learning disabilities and emotional and behavioral disorders. Exceptional Children, 91(1), 21–40. https://doi.org/10.1177/00144029241247037

A complete list is available via his ORCID profile and the University of Cologne publication server (KUPS). More on the chair's research: Research and Publications.