Introduction. This study provides a descriptive bibliometric overview of research at the intersection of
distance education and special education. The purpose of the study is to describe the publication landscape of
this field by examining the basic bibliographic characteristics and temporal development of Scopus-indexed publications. Methodology and Methods. Scopus was used as the data source. On September 14, 2026, the terms “distance education” and “special education” were searched together in the “Article Title, Abstract, Keywords” field. The search yielded 123 documents, all of which were included in the analysis without additional filtering or sampling. The records were examined by publication year, subject area, document type, publication language, country, institution, and source type using frequency and percentage distributions. Results. Publications spanned
1994–2025, with the highest number recorded in 2022 (f = 16; 13.01%); 2016 and 2023 followed with 11 publications each (8.94%). The most prominent subject areas were Social Sciences (73.17%), Computer Science
(34.96%), and Psychology (18.70%). Articles accounted for 60.98% of the documents, followed by conference
papers (19.51%) and book chapters (10.57%). English was the dominant publication language, appearing in 115
records (93.50%). The United States had the highest publication count (f = 50; 40.65%), followed by Brazil,
Turkey, and Greece. At the institutional level, West Virginia University had the highest number of publications (f = 10). Journals were the predominant source type, accounting for 65.85% of the publications. Scientific novelty. The publication structure and temporal development of research at the intersection of distance education and special education have been mapped; the findings indicate that this research has expanded over time and has developed as an interdisciplinary field with strong connections to technology, psychology, and health-related disciplines. Practical significance. The results provide a foundation for future citation, keyword co-occurrence, co-authorship, and content analyses and help identify research concentrations, relatively underrepresented areas, and directions for future inquiry.