Members of minority groups in Britain need to explore new terms to describe their ethnicity, terms that establish them as part of the British mainstream first, and then describe their cultural heritage, so that the extended experience of more than one culture is recognized. (SLD)

This article discusses the history of revisions to the category of "attention deficit hyperactivity disorder" (ADHD) in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM); results of field trials for the forthcoming fourth edition of the DSM; and the relevance, functions, and limitations of DSM-IV diagnosis for educational…

A study investigated the effects of a more restrictive standard discrepancy model (SDM) on the learning-disability placement patterns of 4,100 students in Mississippi. Limiting eligibility to students who had achievement scores 1 1/2 standard deviations below their Full Scale IQ scores reduced eligible students from 124 to 36. (CR)

Several recent court decisions provide ammunition for fighting over-identification of students who have impairments (like Attention Deficit Disorder) but who fail to meet the remaining eligibility requirements under Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act. Distinguishing between Section 504 and IDEA requirements is crucial. (MLH)

A review of learning disabilities in gifted children provides definitions of "learning disabilities" and "giftedness", a classification of gifted students with learning disabilities, the importance of a multidimensional approach to identifying students with gifts/learning disabilities, characteristics, programming guidelines, teaching strategies,…

This handbook is an effort to establish current and consistent terms, definitions, and classification codes to maintain, collect, report, and exchange comparable information about staff. This effort was coordinated by the Council of Chief State School Officers under contract to the National Center for Education Statistics. It represents the best…

This manual, the ninth edition of a regularly published definition and classification work on mental retardation retains some aspects of the system set forth in the eighth (1983) edition, but departs from previous editions in the following ways: (1) it attempts to express the changing understanding of what mental retardation is; (2) it formulates…

A few of the relationships between visual and verbal components are explored. Visuals are considered to be things that can be seen, visible things other than printed words that are used in a communication process. The term verbal applies to written or spoken words. The natural tendency for visual and verbal components to be mutually supportive has…

Historically, policies and funding guidelines for most federal educational programs have not adequately recognized the diverse nature of rural schools. A dichotomy of rural and urban, or, even a tripartite classification (urban, suburban, and rural) would mask the internal diversity of rural schools. Current efforts to understand the condition of…

Graphs are increasingly being used in written communication and writers expect readers to understand them. One definition of graphs--information transmitted by position of point, line or area on a two dimensional surface--excludes displays composed chiefly of numbers or words such as tables or outlines. However, it does include time lines, flow…

The purpose of this study is to contribute to an understanding of how errors could be employed in mathematics instruction so that the students use them constructively in support of their learning of mathematics. A teaching experiment was designed to create an ideal context in which the pedagogical approach to errors as springboards could be…

The nature of activities in which institutional researchers are involved in different institutional and organizational settings was studied. In order to characterize the practice of institutional research in various institutional settings, a taxonomy of institutional research activity areas was developed. A 114-item taxonomy was developed that was…

The term "teaching behaviors" is defined; categories of behaviors are identified; and, within these categories, taxonomies of teaching behaviors useful in facilitating the goals of values awareness instruction are examined. A teaching behavior is defined as a word, set of words, or some nonverbal actions used by the teacher to have some specified…

This handbook is offered as a resource for local, intermediate, state, and federal education officials to assist in the identification, organization, and definition of data and information about education property. An introduction and directions are followed by a discussion of concepts associated with property accounting and some general…

This paper discusses the term "ergative" and traces the history of this and related terms and concepts in descriptive linguistics. Early attempts at defining the ergative illustrate the preoccupation with its supposedly passive nature. Other questions include the simple identification of the ergative, co-occurring cases, supposed…