Community mental health centers (CMHCs) offer invaluable, publicly-funded treatment for serious mental illness (SMI). Unfortunately, evidence-based psychological treatments are often not delivered at CMHCs, in part due to implementation barriers, such as limited time, high caseloads, and complex clinical presentations. Transdiagnostic treatments…

This brief, co-produced by the National Center on Deaf-Blindness (NCDB) and Accessible Teaching, Learning, and Assessment Systems (ATLAS), provides important information about students with dual sensory loss who also have significant cognitive disabilities, as well as recommendations for identification and implications for instruction. The…

Children who are deaf are at risk for the development of behavioral issues such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Early diagnosis and intervention are imperative based on the lack of communication, development of language, emotional and social functioning in these children. Current intervention programs for children who are deaf…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires 95% participation in state achievement testing. Students with the most significant cognitive disabilities participate in states' alternate assessments based on alternate academic achievement standards (AA-AAAS). A growing number of these students are also English learners (Christensen et al., 2018).…

Students with a hearing loss often have an additional disability. Although the number of deaf students with multiple disabilities is growing, research on this population has significantly decreased over the past quarter-century. The article reviews the literature on identification and placement of deaf students with multiple disabilities,…

At least 60% of children with disabilities have multiple disabilities including visual impairments (VI). Because the visual system is neurologically based, any problems of the neurological system will also likely affect vision. The estimated number of students with VI and additional disabilities has increased significantly over the years. Since…

The article describes a variation of Usher's Syndrome, a genetic condition characterized by visual and auditory impairments, in which moderate, postlingual, and sometimes progressive hearing impairments may go undetected. Identification guidelines are offered. (Author/CL)

Approaches to identifying, classifying, and placing multiply handicapped hearing impaired students are reviewed, and a model is described in which five factors differentiate among students: instructional objectives, environment, rate, methodology, and staffing. (CL)

Thirty visually impaired children (6-12 years old) were administered The Word Test which does not use visual stimulus. Correlation between age and scores and comparisons of test results for individuals with test norms indicate that The Word Test can be used in assessing language disorders among visually impaired children. (Author/CL)

This study compared 21 children with pervasive developmental disorders (autism group) with 15 children with fragile X syndrome on the Childhood Autism Rating Scale and the Reiss Scales for Children's Dual Diagnosis. Seven of the fragile X children also scored in the autism range and were more impaired than the other fragile X children. (Contains…

This article reports on the development of the Health and Secondary Conditions Surveillance Instrument Monitoring and Promotion System for use with adults with developmental disabilities. Results of a pilot survey with 119 individuals illustrates how survey data might be used to improve systems of services and supports for this population.…

Evaluation of the relationship between hyperactivity and learning difficulties in 1,593 Australian elementary students indicated twice as many males as females with learning difficulties; 11% of the sample were hyperactive; 41% of the subjects with learning difficulties were also hyperactive; and 3.2% of all subjects had both hyperactivity and…

Describes current child-count systems that count students with visual impairments and additional disabilities in only one disability area. This results in an undercount of the incidence of visual impairment. Discusses the need for children to be initially counted by the disability of the lowest incidence. (CR)

This paper offers guidelines to compare the characteristics observed in children with autism and blindness and those observed in children with blindness alone. It distinguishes between stereotypic behaviors (blindisms) in blind individuals and similar stereotypic behaviors of children with autism. A table presents typical behavior patterns of…

This article discusses issues in the identification of learning disabilities in students with low vision and examines the academic performance of one 8-year-old student and the methods that his multidisciplinary team used to document a dual diagnosis of low vision and learning disabilities. (Contains references.) (Author/DB)