This article is an overview of identification of intellectual disabilities (ID), with a focus on meeting legal and ethical requirements when assessing children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and those living in poverty. Specific procedures and recommended instruments will be reviewed.

Two essays address these issues in American higher education: popular response to a 1994 book entitled "The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life," which addresses assumptions underlying intelligence testing; and recent litigation and controversy over colleges' responsibility to provide instruction at a level…

School psychologists and other educators should be concerned about the issues of confidentiality, privacy and privileged communication in regard to school records such as psychological reports and intelligence test scores. Confidentiality relates to matters of professional ethics, privileged communication refers to legal rights, and privacy is a…

While the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 (Public Law 94-142) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 first established the basic framework for determining the rights of handicapped students, both the courts and Congress are continually interpreting and changing the standards. The eight papers included in this…

Educational testing and its uses have come under increasing criticism as they are used more and more for decision making--to determine student tracking assignments, college admission, personnel selection, and licensing policies. The papers from this conference, which discussed the major issues in testing, include: (1) Testing: A Parent's Point of…

To help public schools minimize litigation, this newsletter recommends constitutional and legal training for public school officials and examines relevant court cases involving school official liability, intelligence tests, and religion in the schools. According to the authors, the Maine v. Thiboutot and Owen v. City of Independence cases…

Recent legal decisions, coupled with Federal and State statutes, require the New York City Board of Education to follow definite guidelines in providing equal educational opportunities for its handicapped children. Among the problems raised are those of classification and labeling, criticized by some as a procedure that focuses more on pathology…

A major development of the law in the 1970s has been the extension of the principle of egalitarianism to the developmentally disabled, particularly the mentally retarded. In recent years numerous judicial decisions have overruled the practices of school districts that have excluded developmentally disabled children from educational programs. This…

This text on the assessment of students with disabilities focuses on accuracy in assessment and testing and the need for functional and meaningful assessment practices. The 14 chapters are grouped into 4 major parts. The first part, "An Introduction to Assessment," describes a comprehensive evaluation and discusses the mandatory…