I could steep my specialty grains while waiting for the water in the brewpot to come to a boil, then dump the liquid in with the water when it's ready, so it's present during the boil. On the other hand, I could wait until after the boil is over, or maybe add the liquid during the boil.
All other things being equal, it would be most convenient for me to do the specialty grains first, then let them cool while I'm doing my boil, and only add them to the main pot at the very end. This would help to give me a quick drop in temperature, which would be nice.
Is there any advantage to having the specialty-grain liquid in the wort earlier on? I suppose a higher boil volume would increase my hops utilization a little, although probably not by a huge amount. Are there fermentable sugars that will only be released if I boil the specialty-grain liquid for a while, or is it so poor in fermentable sugars that it doesn't matter? Does boiling the specialty-grain liquid affect the taste?